Building Advanced Materials for Vision Loss
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Building Advanced Materials for Vision Loss
IRAS ID
172914
Contact name
Kevin Hamill
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Liverpool Research Support Office
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 9 months, 31 days
Research summary
Almost 2 million people in the UK are living with sight loss due to diseases which include diabetic retinopathy, age related macular degeneration, glaucoma, and corneal and ocular surface diseases. Current research is focused on the development of new strategies for the delivery of drugs and cell based therapies to treat many of these diseases. The cell based approach requires the isolation and expansion of a relevant cell population in a clinical grade laboratory prior to transplantation back into the eye and development of novel drug delivery methods requires testing of their effect on ocular cells. The aims of this research project are;
1) To increase the fundamental understanding of how cells interact with their matrix in health and disease.
2) To develop advanced biomaterials that can be used to;
a. Optimise cell expansion to increase the number of cells we obtain from small starting populations,
b. Direct the maturation of immature cells or stem cells into the relevant adult cell types required for repair,
c. Act as carriers for transplantation of sheets of cells for transplantation back into the eye,
d. Deliver drugs and other molecules to the eye and transplanted tissues.
In order to perform our basic science experiments and to determine whether our biomaterials are suitable for clinical use, it will be necessary to expand and grow human cells isolated from cadaveric donor eyes. The cells we will use will include cells isolated from the human cornea (epithelial, stromal, endothelial) conjunctiva (epithelial, goblet), retina (retinal pigment epithelium, retinal endothelial cells, pericytes, choroidal cells), and iris (iris pigment epithelium) and trabecular meshwork. We will receive samples through the University of Liverpool Research Eye Bank (LREB) who will retrieve tissue from donors who have died and whose relatives have given consent for eye tissue donation for research.REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/EM/0090
Date of REC Opinion
24 Feb 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion