Treating stem cells for the damaged cornea strongly

Scientists at Mass Eye and Ear are the winners of the Gizmodo Science Exhibition for 2025 for their research and development to treat the experimental stem cells of the cornea, and it is permanently assumed, with injuries.

Question

Can stem cells help repair eye injuries that cannot be treated in the past?

Results

In a small experience of 14 patients Published In March, the researchers showed that it is possible to take stem cells from a person’s healthy eye and use them to safely regenerate the surface of the other cornea.

After 18 months of the procedure, almost all patients continued to show at least a partial response to treatment and saw that their vision was improving, while the thirds witnessed a complete restoration of the surface of the cornea. No acute side effects related to treatment have been reported.

Why did they do that

When the cornea – the exterior of the transparent eye – is damaged – due to infection or infection, doctors often treat it by implanting healthy corneal tissues from a donor, also known as the illegitimacy of the corneal. But sometimes, the infection is so harmful that it also gets rid of the limited corneal supply of the surface stem cells, which are also called the epithelial epithelial cells. Without these cells, people will face symptoms such as itching, pain, ovarian cornea and loss of vision in the end.

The team’s approach reaps the corneal stem cells from the healthy eye of the person and grows in the laboratory. These epithelial cells with cultivated self -edges (Calec) are then filled with the taste of cellular tissues that are planted in the other eye.

“The lack of corneal stem cells is in fact one of the most common causes of blindness all over the world. These stem cells create a healthy epithelial cell, and they are compatible with a good vision and the lack of pain and comfortable eye when it flashes.” Cornea The service in Mass Eye and Ear, tell Gizmodo. Thus, we have developed this type of stem cell therapy in response to the unparalleled medical need for stem cell deficiency and corneal blindness. “

Why are they a winner?

There is no very effective treatment for the most severe stem cell deficiency cases, according to Jurkunas. So Calec can provide hope for many people who had no options. And because it uses the adult stem cells of a person, you do not have to worry about the body’s refusal or other ethical considerations that are usually presented using embryonic stem cells.

But only more, it opens a new floor in the world of stem cell medicine. According to researchers, this is the first stem cell treatment of its kind in the United States for use in the eye. For decades, scientists were studying stem cells as a potential treatment for all irreversible types of injuries. Calec and similar treatments can become some of the first examples of goodwill for this approach to work as intended.

What next

Jurkunas is now taking place and its team is a discussion with the Food and Drug Administration with regard to Calec’s approval, which may require additional data from a larger experience conducted through multiple research sites. They are also in conversations with potential commercial partners to license treatment and help finance more development, including a new experience if necessary.

Outside, the team is still working to improve the age of validity and manufacture Calec cells, which will be important to ensure that treatment is charged at longer distances.

team

Jurkunas began for the first time to work in the research that led to Calec as a beginner scientist in 2006, nearly 20 years ago. Although the team may bring commercial partners at the final station of development, the current Calec trip from the laboratory seat to the bed has been significantly without any pharmaceutical financing. This has required cooperation with many other researchers, including scientists in Japan who initially helped Jurkunas to learn how to better develop stem cells in the laboratory.

“It took a huge amount of study research staff. Then there are collaborators with doctors, Reda Dana, Jia Yin, Lynette Jones; they were the main investigators in the (March 2025) study,” Goriconas said. “This is only the mass and ear eye. Then we have a Boston Children’s Hospital; we have Dana Farber; we have a Jeep center, which is (the contract research organization) that helped us analyze and manage data and all things that you have to do to make sure that the data is sound.”

Jurkunas also pointed out that Calec will never bear fruit without federal funding provided by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Ain – the same type of funding that is now going on Extinction By the current Trump administration.

She said, “I just want to remember people that the National Institutes of Health supports medical transformational treatments that are de Novo, they are new.” “We think about them, we are working on them, and develop them.”

Click here To see all the winners at the Gizmodo Science Exhibition 2025.