Method of generating human retinal progenitors from embryonic stem cells

1. A method for in vitro differentiation of human retinal progenitor cells from human embryonic stem cells, the method comprising:

culturing said human embryonic stem cells to embryoid bodies in a conditioning medium comprising at least 1 ng/ml of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), at least 1 ng/ml Dkk-1 and at least 1 ng/ml Noggin for 1 to 7 days in the absence of basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF2) activity; then

culturing the resulting embryoid bodies in retinal differentiation medium comprising at least 1 ng/ml of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), at least 1 ng/ml Dkk-1, at least 1 ng/ml Noggin and at least 5 ng/ml FGF-2 for at least one week,

thereby yielding human retinal progenitor cells.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said embryoid bodies are plated to adhere to a semi-solid substrate prior to culturing in retinal differentiation medium.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said semi-solid substrate comprises matrigel extracellular matrix protein.

4. The method according to claim 1 , the method further comprises quantitating retinal progenitor cells in said culture.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein said quantitating comprises determining the expression of eye field transcription factors by cells yielded by said culturing in said retinal differentiation medium.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein said determining is performed by quantitative PCR.

7. The method according to claim 5 , wherein said determining is performed by antibody binding.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein following said culturing step, the cells are further selected to enrich for retinal progenitor cells.