Regenerative nanomedicine and the treatment of degenerative retinal diseases

Regenerative medicine deals with the repair or the replacement of tissues and organs using advanced materials and methodologies. Regenerative nanomedicine uses nanoparticles containing gene transcription factors and other modulating molecules that allow reprogramming of cells in vivo as well as nanomaterials to induce selective differentiation of neural progenitor cells and to create neural-mechanical interfaces. In this article, we consider some applications of nanotechnology that may be useful for the treatment of degenerative retinal diseases, for example, use of nanoparticles for drug and gene therapy, use of nanomaterials for neural interfaces and extracellular matrix construction for cell-based therapy and neural prosthetics, and the use of bionanotechnology to re-engineer proteins and cell behavior for regenerative medicine.