For the first time, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have made early retina structures containing proliferating neuroretinal progenitor cells using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells derived from human blood. And in another advance, the retina structures showed the capacity to form layers of cells—as the retina does in normal human development—and these cells possessed the machinery that could allow them to communicate information. (Light-sensitive photoreceptor cells in the...