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Senior investigator James L. Funderburgh of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine said the corneal stem cells were able to remodel scar-like tissue back to normal.

The findings, published in the journal Stem Cells, suggest cell-based therapies might be an effective way to treat human corneal blindness and vision impairment due to the scarring that occurs after infection, trauma and other common eye problems.

"Our experiments indicate that after stem cell treatment, mouse eyes that initially had corneal defects looked no different than mouse eyes that had never been damaged", Funderburgh said in a statement.

"Corneal scars are permanent so the best available solution is corneal transplant and transplants have a high success rate but they don't last forever."

The ability to grow millions of the cells in the laboratory could make it possible to create an off-the-shelf product, which would be especially useful in countries that have limited medical and surgical resources but a great burden of eye disease due to infections and trauma, Funderburgh said.

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