3D Printed Artificial Corneas May Work in Place

by：Tuowei 2019-06-10

Scientists have designed a 3D printed artificial cornea that simulates the human eye using a bio-ink made of stem cells

This may help reduce the need for eye donations.

When a person's cornea is severely damaged, a corneal transplant is required.

However, patients usually need to wait years to receive an eye donation.

Many scientists are devoted to developing artificial cornea.

The existing artificial cornea is made of recombinant collagen or chemicals such as synthetic polymers.

Therefore, it does not combine well with the eyes, or is opaque after corneal implantation.

Researchers from Posco University of Science and Technology and Gyeonggi University of Korea used bio-ink 3D printing of artificial cornea made of decellular corneal matrix and stem cells.

The cornea is made of corneal tissue.

According to a study published on bioprocessing, the derived bioinks.

It is biocompatible and 3D cell printing technology reproduces the environment of the cornea, so its transparency is similar to that of the human cornea.

The cornea is the outermost layer covering the pupil, which protects the eye from the influence of the external environment.

It is the first layer to receive light, so it needs to be transparent and move with the movement of the pupil and with flexibility.

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Include these 14 foods in your diet and due to different cornea it is restricted to developing artificial cornea using synthetic biocompatible materials

Related properties.

In addition, although many researchers have tried to repeat the corneal environment as transparent, the microstructure of the materials used in existing studies to penetrate light is limited.

The human cornea is organized in a grid-like structure of collagen.

The grid pattern in the cornea is directly related to the transparency of the cornea, and many studies have attempted to replicate the human cornea.

However, due to the use of toxic substances in the body, its corneal features are insufficient, including low transparency, and so on, and there are limitations in the application of corneal transplants.

In order to solve this problem, the research team used the shear stress generated in 3D printing to create the corneal grid pattern and demonstrated that the cornea was used by using the corneal matrix-

The extracellular matrix biological ink has biological compatibility.

During 3D printing, when the ink in the printer flows out through the nozzle and through the nozzle, friction is generated, resulting in shear stress.

By adjusting the shear stress to control the pattern of collagen fibers, the team successfully produced a transparent artificial cornea with a human corneal grid pattern.

They also observed that after 4 weeks in the body, with the modification of the print path, collagen fibers produced a grid pattern similar to the natural human corneal structure.

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