The Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) has developed a way to repair damaged corneas with specially designed contact lenses that have been treated with adult stem cells.
The most common treatment for people with severely damaged corneas is corneal transplant. However, this is not an option if the outer edge of the cornea is damaged, such as in injuries caused by chemical or thermal burns.
Like our skin, our corneal tissue is constantly regenerating but the adult stem cells needed to do this are on the outer edge of the cornea.
The technique, developed by the team from CERA and collaborators from the Mawson Institute at the University of South Australia, uses a special contact lens to transfer corneal stem cells onto the damaged part of the cornea where they multiply and regenerate the tissue. The CERA researchers, led by the Head of CERA’s Surgical Research Unit, Associate Professor Mark Daniell, have also been able to tag the stem cells allowing researchers to conclusively demonstrate for the first time that cells do transfer from the lens to the eye and remain there, contributing to repair.
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University of NSW researchers, lead by Associate Prof. Nick Di Girolamo, have just completed a second trial using a similar technique with an ‘off the shelf’ contact lens and are awaiting follow-up data on patients before they publish. To date the UNSW team has been unable to tag the stem cells.
A/Prof. Girolamo acknowledges that the ability to tag the stem cells is important. “This ‘tagging’ is important because ideally we want to know where the transplanted cells go, how long they remain viable, and whether these are the cells contributing to corneal regeneration.”
He added that, “the Melbourne study is timely and warranted because if it replicates our results, then essentially it has been trialled, tested and validated by an independent laboratory”.
Mr. Karl Brown, a PhD student working on the project at CERA said it was an “exciting development” for both stem cell therapy and eye research.
“A lot of people don’t realise the huge potential for stem cells to treat eye disease and eye injuries,” Mr. Brown said. “It’s my hope that this therapy will one day restore sight for people for whom traditional corneal transplants are not an option.”
While human trials of this technique are underway internationally, the researchers are not currently recruiting patients in Australia.
