Corneal Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineering is the principle that cells are combined with the scaffold carrier in a certain way, and the scaffold is gradually degraded. The cells proliferate, migrate and differentiate on the scaffold to produce new tissues. The basic elements of tissue engineering for corneas are cells, scaffold materials and tissue construction techniques. It breaks through the cycle from cell to cell, and reaches a higher level from cell to tissue. Currently, corneal tissue engineering has made remarkable strides. Designing biocompatible, mechanically stable, and optically transparent tissues is a significant challenge in corneal tissue engineering. To overcome these challenges, the researchers employed two basic approaches: a cell-based strategy for manipulating cells to create their own extracellular matrix, and a scaffold-based strategy for providing strong and transparent substrate on which cells grow.

Fig. 1. Tissue-engineered approaches for corneal reconstruction. (Ghezzi CE, et al., 2015)

Service Overview

Challenges in creating corneal tissue engineering include creating cytocompatible, mechanically robust, and optically transparent structures. Ace Therapeutics' corneal tissue engineering experts seek to use discoveries focused on stroma structure and cell behavior to their advantage. At Ace Therapeutics, our talented researchers have developed two approaches to overcome corneal tissue engineering challenges, including cell-based strategies and scaffold-based strategies.

• Cell-Based Strategies for Corneal Tissue Engineering

The cell-based approach uses information contained in the cells themselves to mimic native human cornea structure and function. To rebuild the corneal stroma, Ace Therapeutics is working to remodel the intact cornea with keratofibroblasts, corneal epithelial cells, and corneal endothelial cells. At Ace Therapeutics, several strategies have been developed to create transplantable epithelial and endothelial cell sheets for the treatment of ocular surface diseases that can be directly applied to corneal tissue engineering. That is, by utilizing the temperature-responsive culture dish method, epithelial/ endothelial cell sheets were engineered and directly transplanted into the eye without sutures.

It is worth mentioning that during the entire process of creating cell-based tissue engineering, our highly qualified expert team also tried to co-culture two types of corneal cells to study the interaction between cells, so as to better stimulate normal cell behavior.

• Scaffold-Based Strategies for Corneal Tissue Engineering

Biomaterials experts at Ace Therapeutics work to engineer one or more new corneal stromas on which cells can grow. At Ace Therapeutics, our talented expert team has helped many development companies design and develop a variety of corneal stromas. We provide the following corneal stent development services to global customers, including but not limited to.

• Natural Corneal Stroma Development
  Finding corneal stroma substitutes with similar structural and biochemical composition to natural corneal stroma is one of the focuses Ace Therapeutics' services. We provide a variety of corneal stroma substitutes such as decellularized porcine cornea, rabbit corneal stroma, animal-derived collagen, and recombinant human collagen.
• Polymer Development
  In addition to the aforementioned natural corneal stroma, Ace Therapeutics' researchers also uses synthetic polymers to create successful scaffolds for corneal equivalents. These scaffolds compensate for some of the limitations of the natural corneal stroma by not shrinking in the presence of cells and having more stable and tunable degradation properties. At Ace Therapeutics, polyglycolic acid (PLA) is a commonly used polymer for constructing tissue-engineered corneas. Our researchers incorporated PLA into the rabbit corneal stroma to assess the safety of the synthetic scaffold and possible loss of tissue transparency.

Thanks to our strong expertise in corneal tissue engineering and highly qualified researchers, Ace Therapeutics provides end-to-end corneal tissue engineering development services to clients worldwide. If you are interested in our services or need more detailed information, please feel free to contact us. Our experienced scientists are ready to help you!

References

1. Ghezzi CE, Rnjak-Kovacina J, Kaplan DL. Corneal tissue engineering: recent advances and future perspectives. Tissue Eng Part B Rev. 2015 ;21(3):278-87.
2. Shah A, Brugnano J, Sun S, et al. The development of a tissue-engineered cornea: biomaterials and culture methods. Pediatr Res. 2008;63(5):535-44. doi: 10.1203/PDR.0b013e31816bdf54. PMID: 18427299.2.

• In Vitro Corneal Tissue Model Development Services

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