Book excerpt: This is a concise how-to of successfully treating previously deemed "untreatable" retinal and optic nerve conditions with stem cell therapies. Based on the results of 11 years of experience treating approximately 600 patients, this text will serve as a template for others to develop similar stem cell based treatments in their specialty. Author, Jeffrey N. Weiss, MD is specifically poised to offer dependable insight on stem cell surgery for both the retina and the optic nerve, having performed the first retinal stem cell surgery in 2010, with Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved studies that are registered with the National Institute of Health (NIH), and listed on ClinicalTrials.gov. Featuring all original work from Dr. Jeffrey Weiss's specialization in stem cell ophthalmology, this book is primarily written for ophthalmologists, but structured so that specialists across disciplines can take the model presented and create their own studies and clinical trials using stem cell therapies.