Corneal Tissue Engineering

Due to the fragility of the eye, a 5-30% rejection rate for donor eyes, and the complexity of creating a transducer to send image data to the brain, corneal tissue engineering is a more friendly approach to a persistent problem; how to return site to those who have lost it due to disease or damage to the eye, or in this particular case, the cornea. Currently, corneal epithelial cells from other, healthy donors can be succesfully cultured and prepared for placement on the cornea. However, these donor epithelial cells are often rejected, and a patient wanting to undergo this treatment must take immunosuppressants (though in the distant future, healthy epithelial cells might be able to be genetically engineered from the patients own epithelial cells, preventing acceptance problems). There are also significant problems with attaching these epithelial cells to the damaged cornea. Currently this area is undergoing the most thorough investigation, resulting in a variety of different methods. The most common method is to use a human amniotic membrane as a hub to which all the epithelial cells can attach, and then to suture this onto the cornea. But this method requires an amniotic membrane donor, making supply and issue two major issues. There is also a proposed method of engineering a contact lense capable of transfering the epithelial cells to the damaged sections of the cornea, which requires an acrylic acid coating on the contact lense. However, engineering a suitable contact lense requires extensive knowlege of both organ culture and surface chemical engineering, making the construction a very complex process.