A Comprehensive Approach to Whole Eye Transplantation: Building a Scientific Foundation for New Therapies in Vision Restoration
Abstract
Traumatic eye injury and other visual disorders from penetrating wounds affect 16 percent of all evacuated wounded Service members from Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Enduring Freedom (OEF), and New Dawn (OND), which rank fourth among injuries suffered by active duty personnel. Nearly one-third of active duty personnel who experience ocular trauma become blind, for which there is no treatment. Injured Soldiers are left with the inability to return to work, a decrease in quality of life, and a dependence on caregivers. The medical and military communities can incur large expenses from the care needed to help Soldiers who suffer from vision loss. Eye trauma cannot be cured because of damage to the optic nerve. Unlike nerves in the hands and legs, the optic nerve is a part of the central nervous system and does not have the ability to repair itself after it is injured. The goal of our research is to reverse blindness through whole eye transplantation (WET). Similar to face and hand transplantation, whole-eye transplantation restores form and function by giving tissue from an organ donor. WET offers the potential to provide viable retinal ganglion cells, which are the cells that carry visual information from the eye through the optic nerve to the brain. We have created, to our knowledge, the world s first viable whole eye transplant model in the rat. Our WET model provides the ability to obtain high-quality information in carefully designed experiments. We have assembled a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the top of their respective fields who have the necessary experience to drive this innovative research forward. To our knowledge, we are the largest collaborative group researching whole eye transplantation and the only group with preliminary data. We will examine viability, function, and the immune response after whole eye transplantation. The knowledge gained from our research has the potential to help millions of civilians and Veterans suffering from blindness by initiating the steps to make WET a clinical reality. The proposed research addresses the Fiscal Year 2016 Joint Warfighter Medical Research Program Priority Area of the Clinical Rehabilitative Medicine Research Program. The high-quality basic science data from our research will provide the foundation for further studies and studies in large animals, which serves as a stepping-stone for preclinical trials. At the end of 4 years, we will have viability, functional return, and preclinical surgical approach data in whole eye transplantation. The knowledge gained from our research has the potential to help wounded Service members suffering from blindness regain independence, a better life, and to feel "whole" again.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 31, 2017
- Source ID
- W81XWH1610775
Entities
People
- Kia Washington
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of Pittsburgh