The researchers’ results show that a novel light-activated material can be used to effectively reshape and thicken damaged corneal tissue, thereby promoting healing and recovery.
Millions of people suffer from corneal diseases but only a fraction is eligible for corneal transplantation, which is the current gold standard for ailments resulting in thinning corneas such as keratoconus, an eye disease that can result in loss of vision.
In a statement, Dr. Emilio Alarcon, an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine and researcher at the BioEngineering and Therapeutic Solutions (BEaTS) group at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, said: “Our technology is a leap in the field of corneal repair. We are confident this could become a practical solution to treat patients living with diseases that negatively impact corneal shape and geometry, including keratoconus.
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The cornea is the protective surface of the eye in front of the iris and pupil that controls and directs light rays into the eye and helps achieve clear vision. It’s normally transparent, but injury or infection results in scarring of the cornea.
The collaborative team’s work is detailed in a paper titled ‘Low energy blue pulsed light-activated injectable materials for restoring thinning corneas’ that has been published in Advanced Functional Materials.
In it they describe how transparent low energy photoactivated extracellular matrix-mimicking materials have been developed for intrastromal injection to restore stromal thickness. The injectable biomaterials are comprised of short peptides and glycosaminoglycans (chondroitin and hyaluronic acid) that assemble into a hydrogel when pulsed with low-energy blue light. Tests in rat corneas demonstrated that two iterations of the formulations remain stable in situ without stimulating significant inflammation or neovascularisation.
“The use of low light intensities and the ability of the developed materials to stably rebuild and change the curvature of the cornea tissue make these formulations attractive for clinical translation,” the team said.
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