Masayo Takahashi
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Ophthalmology
Masayo Takahashi | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 23, 1961 Osaka, Japan |
| Alma mater | Kyoto University |
| Known for | Clinical application of Induced pluripotent stem cell research |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Stem cell research Ophthalmology |
| Institutions | Riken Institute Kyoto University Salk Institute |
Masayo Takahashi (高橋 政代, Takahashi Masayo; born June 23, 1961) is a Japanese medical physician, ophthalmologist and stem cell researcher.
Takahashi serves as a project research leader at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe focusing on the clinical application of iPS Cell (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) technology on macular degeneration. In 2014, Takahashi was named by British science journal Nature as one of "five to watch" global scientists for her groundbreaking work in regenerative medicine.[1]
In March 2017 a team led by Takahashi completed the first successful transplant of iPS-derived retinal cells into the eye of a patient suffering from advanced wet age-related macular degeneration.[2] During the surgery the patient received a transplant of approximately 250,000 retinal pigment epithelial cells into the eye generated from donor-derived iPSCs. Results of this landmark study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.[3]
Takahashi was born in Osaka Japan in 1961. After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine at Kyoto University in 1986 and obtaining a PhD specializing in visual pathology at the same university in 1992, Takahashi's clinical and research work has focused on ophthalmology and retinal diseases. She chose ophthalmology as her specialty because she wanted to have a family and thought the discipline would help her best balance work and life. In 1995 Takahashi commenced post-doctoral research at the Salk Institute's Laboratory of Genetics. There she was fascinated by the chances of using stem cells for eye diseases and retinal therapy. Since 2001 she has served as an associate professor at the translational research center.
Research
In September 2014, her and her team at the Riken Institute’s center for developmental biology in Kobe succeeded in a world-first transplanting of cells made from induced pluripotent stem cells into a human body. The operation was conducted as a clinical study and involved creating a retinal sheet from iPS cells, which were developed by Shinya Yamanaka. iPS cells are created by removing mature cells from an individual and reprogramming these cells back to an embryonic state. The retinal sheet was transplanted into a female patient in her 70s with age related macular degeneration (AMD), an eye complication that blurs the central field of vision and can progress into blindness. The iPS cells were hoped to stop the progression of AMD. Her and her research team used iPS cells made from the patient’s own skin cells. Then in March she and her team carried out the world’s first transplant of retinal cells created from donor iPS cells. Time and cost used in the surgery has been significantly reduced by using super donor cells, cells derived from people with special white blood cell types that aren’t rejected by the immune systems of receiving patients.
