Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a severe form of blindness that runs in families with an incidence of 1:4000. A team at UC Irvine, is using cells called retinal progenitor cells to repair the damage caused by this vision destroying disease. The cells are injected into the back of the eye and it’s hoped they will help preserve the photoreceptors attacked by RP as well as generate new photo receptors to replace those destroyed by the disease. CIRM is now funding a Phase 2 trial, sponsored by a jCyte, that is testing this treatment in a larger group of RP patients.