Gong and her team, led by graduate student Ruosen (Alex) Xie, screened a long list of potential biomaterials before deciding on poly(glycerol-sebacate), or PGS, a material that is compatible with the retina and can be safely metabolized by the body after degradation. In this second-generation scaffold, the team opted for an “ice cube tray” design, which can hold three times as many cells while reducing the amount of biomaterial used for the scaffolding to facilitate faster degradation of the synthetic material within the eye. However, that design wasn’t optimal since it could not fit many photoreceptors in each pore. In 2018, the team developed its first biodegradable polymer scaffolding with wine-glass-shaped pores to hold the photoreceptor cells in place. This electron microscope image of the new “scaffolding” for growing and implanting retinal cells shows the ice cube tray-shaped reservoirs that hold cells and cylinder-shaped holes in the bottom layer, which provide channels for maturing photoreceptors to make contact with a patient’s retinal tissue. Together, their research groups have developed a micro-molded scaffolding photoreceptor “patch” designed to be implanted under a damaged or diseased retina. Gamm is collaborating with colleagues Shaoqin (Sarah) Gong, a professor of biomedical engineering, Wisconsin Institute for Discovery faculty member and an expert in biomaterials, and Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and an expert in semiconductors whose lab is experienced in sophisticated micro- and nanofabrication. “So, we started thinking, ‘How can we deliver these cells in a more intelligent way?’ That’s when we reached out to our world-class engineers at UW–Madison.” “While it was a breakthrough to be able to make the spare parts - these photoreceptors - it’s still necessary to get them to the right spot so they can effectively reconstruct the retina,” he says. However, it remains challenging to precisely deliver those photoreceptors within the diseased or damaged eye so that they can form appropriate connections, says David Gamm, director of the McPherson Eye Research Institute and professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. Researchers at UW–Madison have made new photoreceptors from human pluripotent stem cells. They described their work today in the journal Science Advances. The human body is not capable of regenerating those photoreceptors, but new advances by medical researchers and engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison may provide hope for those suffering from vision loss. Tens of millions of people worldwide are affected by diseases like macular degeneration or have had accidents that permanently damage the light-sensitive photoreceptors within their retinas that enable vision.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |