http://www.stemcellpioneers.com/showthread.php?10104-Japan-seeks-leadership-role-in-stem-cell-medicine&highlight=japan
What is good in Japan is that the whole country seems to have come together in an effort to help patients and find cures. There is collaboration. Here in the U.S. there is too much money to be made. So many seem to be following that path, forgetting about the patients.
Here is an example of what's going on there -
RIKEN to resume retinal iPS transplant
June 07, 2016
Jiji Press
KOBE (Jiji Press) — The government-affiliated research institute RIKEN said Monday that it will resume its clinical study in which retinal tissues developed from iPS cells will be transplanted in an eye disease patient, in cooperation with Kyoto University and other medical institutes.
In 2014, the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, or CDB, successfully conducted a retinal transplant using induced pluripotent stem cells for the first time in the world. But its second trial was suspended due to a gene abnormality found in iPS cells.
In the first trial, iPS cells were created from cells taken from the patient who underwent the transplant.
Next time, the study team, led by Masayo Takahashi, project leader at the CDB, plans to use iPS cells created from mature cells of some others, since the first operation proved using a patient’s own cells is time-consuming and costly.
For the second trial, the CDB will develop retinal tissues from iPS cells supplied by Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, headed by Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka, the creator of the pluripotent cells.
Transplants of CDB-developed retinal tissues will be conducted at Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital and Osaka University Hospital.
The four institutes have signed an agreement to strengthen their collaboration. The partnership is “encouraging,” Takahashi said at a press conference on Monday. She expressed eagerness to carry out the next operation early next year.
Yamanaka said at the same news conference the he was heartened by the four institutes teaming up to push the study forward.Speech