Cell material interactions in ocular tissue engineering and transplantation

Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) impacts approximately 15 million people in the United States and causes blindness due to death of photoreceptor cells (rods and cones). Advancements in stem cell biology have enabled the generation of patient-specific, functional photoreceptor cells that could be used to treat AMD. However, photoreceptor cells are fragile and require a biomaterial carrier to protect and orient them during transplantation. In this work we investigated how fabrication parameters influence scaffold stiffness and cell loading capabilities of photoreceptor cell scaffolds. We also investigated the impact of several biomolecules naturally found in the retina on immature retinal cell gene expression. Together, our findings can help future researchers design photoreceptor cell scaffolds with improved cell loading densities and that drive and maintain photoreceptor cell identity. Other ocular diseases, such as Fuchs’ Endothelial Cell Dystrophy (FECD), can be treated by the replacement of a thin layer of donor cells. FECD results in clouding of cornea due to corneal endothelial cell (CEC) death. There are several techniques for performing CEC transplant including Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) and Descemet’s membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK). DMEK results in higher visual acuity than DSAEK but is more surgically challenging due to poor surgical handling properties of the graft. In this work, we aerosolized and cured a thin layer of biopolymer onto the DMEK graft to improve its surgical handling properties. Our approach is an exciting step towards making DMEK a more widely available treatment for FECD.