Currently corneal transplants are the only way there is to restore vision lost due to corneal damage. The cornea is a transparent layer forming the front of the eye. They keep the eyes from drying up and are important in sustaining our eyesight. The cornea can deteriorate or be damaged due to age, sickness or trauma,. Corneal cells cannot repair of regenerate themselves and can lead to permanent blindness once damaged.
Normally when your eyesight deteriorates due to cornea issues, you would need to get a corneal translate from a matching donor. While millions need corneal transplants only about 47,000 transplants take place in the US in a single year. There’s also a possibility of rejection and other complications that can arise from surgery, as well as needing to take steroids to stave off rejection. There is also an issue of the donor corneal cells themselves being damaged in the process of harvesting, storing and transplantation.
Researchers from Melbourne, Australia led by Berkay Ozcelik recently developed a technique for growing corneal cells in the lab that can be used in place of donor corneas to be implanted into a patient’s eye to restore vision. On August 15, 2016, it was reported at ABC News, the corneal cells were successfully implanted into animals to cure blindness.
Cornea cells ‘successfully’ grown and implanted to cure blindness https://t.co/0AMKvZrSSx pic.twitter.com/snKUyBehVp
— ABC News (@abcnews) August 15, 2016
Ozcelik and his team, successfully implanted to coreas into sheep. The corneal cells were grown using a sample taken from the sheep’s corneal cells on a synthetic film. Once healthy cells were produced they were implanted into the sheep’s eye. Within a year they hope to start treatment on human subjects.
Another form of blindness caused by damage to the photoreceptors at the back of the retina, is already has a solution and is being tested on humans. Bionic eyes, which a prosthesis for the eyes to help people see by using a camera. Five patients have received the bionic eye implants at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital as part of a clinical trial.
The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System involved an implant that would take the place of the photoreceptors and and receive light information from an external camera mounted on a pair of glasses. The camera would capture the light and feed the information to the implant in the eye which will pass that in as visual information the brain instead of from the eyes.
With these new technologies emerging, maybe in 50 year blindness may be as non existent as an invisible planet called Nibiru.
