Stem cells in ophthalmology: From the bench to the bedside

The use of stem cells in medicine is becoming an exciting therapeutic option. The fascinating elements of these innovative therapies include the possibility of isolating, culturing, and differentiating multipotent cells and using them to replace damaged cells or act as enhanced cellular response modulators. The most significant challenges are stem cell isolation, culture, and transfer techniques, which can be favored by bioengineering, nanotechnology, and gene therapy. There are numerous medical fields in which stem cells have recently played a key role in treatment options, including ophthalmology. The possibility of exploiting stem cells derived from different tissues (i.e., blood, bone marrow, adipose tissue, etc.) to rebuild ocular tissues represents one of the areas of most significant interest in which research has invested considerable resources. The most frequently and easily used option considered in this type of research derives from adult stem cells (i.e., adipose tissue). These isolated and cultured cells have shown interesting preliminary results for ocular surface diseases. Modern animal trials have also evaluated the efficacy of stem cells in the optic nerve and retinal pathologies. This chapter briefly overviews stem cell-based therapy in ophthalmology, discussing in-depth the fascinating and evolving therapeutic options reported in the literature. Moreover, our chapter highlights the limitations in this field of research, including the economic and practical inadequacies and lack of clinical studies in humans.