In Search of Sight

PHYSICIANS IN CHICAGO USE FETAL CELLS TO COMBAT A DEGENERATIVE EYE DISEASE AFFLICTING MILLIONS

ifteen years ago, Dr. Terry Ernest, an ophthalmologist, had to tell his own father the news that he so dreaded giving his patients: Your eyesight is progressively deteriorating, and there is no cure for the condition. Despite tremendous medical progress in treating many forms of vision loss, Ernest could do nothing but watch as his father's eyesight slowly faded, eventually robbing him of the pleasure of pursuing the pages of his favorite books or seeing the smile on his son's face. "At one point, I actually apologized to my father for all the tuition he'd paid," says Ernest. "I had to say to him, 'I'm sorry. There's absolutely nothing I can do.' "

Earlier this year, a team of University of Chicago physicians led by Ernest and surgeon Dr. Samir Patel performed a complex operation on Pearl Van Vliet, a retired medical-center receptionist who was suffering from the same condition that had deprived Ernest's father of his sight. That disease is known as age-related macular degeneration, in which the eye's macula, a remarkably sensitive structure in the middle of the retina, gradually loses its ability to distinguish shapes and colors.

In a delicate procedure that lasted more than two hours, Ernest and his team tried a new and hopeful approach to macular degeneration. They first took cells from the retina of an aborted fetus, then surgically transplanted them into Van Vliet's severely impaired left eye. Since the operation, the transplanted cells have begun to proliferate, forming minute projections that stretch toward Van Vliet's macula. For Ernest, a large, affable man of 62, the weekly ritual of scrutinizing the eye scans that chronicle Van Vliet's recovery from surgery proved intensely satisfying, not only professionally but also because of his frustrating experience with his father, who died in 1992.