This is Science Friday, I'm Ira Plato.

And I'm Kathleen Davis.

A bit later in the hour, we'll look ahead to the Women's World Cup finals

with a new book about women athletes and look at the world in a grain of sand.

But first, each year in the United States,

some 40,000 people receive transplants of the cornea.

That's the clear front part of the eye that light goes through first.

Other people receive artificial corneas to help restore clear vision.

But if an eye has been damaged by, let's say, a chemical burn

or another severe eye injury, those treatments may not be options.

But now an early phase one clinical trial is reporting positive results

using a stem cell technique to grow cells from a patient's healthy eye

that can then be placed back into the damaged one.

Joining me to talk about this are two guests involved in this study.

Their work is reported in the journal Science Advances.

Dr. Uli Yirkunis is Associate Director of the cornea service

at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston. Dr. Jerome Rich is the Executive Director

of the Connell and O'Reilly Family Cell Manipulation Core Facility

at Theta Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Also, welcome to Science Friday.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A nice to have both of you. Okay, let's start with I-101.

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