Could the body’s own cellular “powerhouses” help rescue damaged nerve cells in the eye? Scientists have taken a first step towards answering that question by extracting mitochondria from a woman’s leg and injecting them into both of her eyes.
The experimental procedure was carried out in a 26-year-old woman who had suffered severe vision loss following a brain haemorrhage. According to a preprint case report led by neuroscientist David Putrino of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the treatment did not restore her vision, but it produced temporary changes in the way her pupils responded to light.
