According to the researchers, the goal is to restore sight to patients with total blindness. The grant will support the work of the CU-led Total Human Eye-Allow Transplantation Innovation Advancement Project Team.
“Currently, no whole human eye transplants have been performed to restore vision,” principal investigator and surgeon scientist Dr. Kia Washington said in a statement. “We believe that tremendous advances in technology, transplantation surgery, and regenerative medicine over the past two decades have now made it possible to restore vision.”
The CU Anschutz team said it will begin with animal models on optic nerve recovery strategies, immunosuppression, and postoperative care, with the goal of advancing human trial studies.
“One of the most complex parts of the procedure is the successful reattachment of the optic nerve. Think of it as repairing a broken electrical connection so that signals can be transmitted from the eye to the brain,” Washington said in a statement. Washington said in a statement. Monitoring and aftercare are equally important to ensure that the brain continues to receive the correct signals and is accepting the new eye.
Washington said the techniques and advances developed in the research could be used to treat blindness while offering new solutions for other neurodegenerative disorders that affect the central nervous system, such as spina bifida. Injuries or brain damage.
The project is a collaboration with several partners such as Johns Hopkins University, University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, and the National Eye Institute, as well as researchers at the University of Southern California and investigators at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.