By Amy Price PhD
“The procedure is totally simple and cheap,” reports UNSW’s Dr Nick Di Girolamo (lead author of research study), “Unlike other techniques, it requires no foreign human or animal products, only the patient’s own serum, and is completely non-invasive. This preliminary trial was conducted on three people, two with extensive corneal damage resulting from multiple surgeries to remove ocular melanomas, and one with the genetic eye condition aniridia. The patient with aniridia had damage in both eyes so stem cells were taken from the conjunctiva area. Because stem cells have not yet differentiated into specific cells they could grow into the cells that were needed. Each patient’s sight improved significantly after only a couple of months
Here is how it works. Less than a millimeter of tissue is taken from the ocular surface of the patients own eye. It takes a couple of hours to prepare the eye and put the contact lens with the baby cells in place and the patient goes home. The stem cells are cultured on a post surgical contact lens which is then placed onto the damaged cornea for 10 days, during which time the cells are able to re-colonise and heal the damaged eye surface. Apparently it took some experimentation to find a lens that could be successfully used as a scaffold for the cells.
The scientists on this research project see this therapy as a simple way to restore sight for eyes damaged by scarring, chemotherapy and a range of other disorders. They suggest that all is needed is a simple lab and qualified medical personnel putting it within reach of even third world countries
Di Girolamo, Nick; Bosch, Martina; Zamora, Katherine; Coroneo, Minas T.; Wakefield, Denis; Watson, Stephanie L. A Contact Lens-Based Technique for Expansion and Transplantation of Autologous Epithelial Progenitors for Ocular Surface Reconstruction. Transplantation, 2009; 87 (10): 1571 DOI: 10.1097/TP.0b013e3181a4bbf2
