Cornea in Biological News

The role of stem cells in renewing the cornea

A group of researchers in Switzerland has published a study appearing in the Oct 1 advance online edition of the Journal Nature that shows how the cornea uses stem cells to repair itself. Using mouse models they demonstrate that everyday wear and tear on the cornea is repaired from stem cell...

Artificial cornea offers better results for infants, some blind patients

Infants and adults who are blind due to a cloudy or damaged cornea are seeing some remarkable results thanks to a new version of an artificial implant that takes the place of the cornea, the clear covering of the eye that serves as our window on the world. The results of operations involving the ...

An artificial cornea is in sight, thanks to biomimetic hydrogels

If eyes are "the windows of the soul," corneas are the panes in those windows. They shield the eye from dust and germs. They also act as the eye's outermost lens, contributing up to 75 percent of the eye's focusing power. On Sept. 11 in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Chemical S...

Scientists discover why cornea is transparent and free of blood vessels, allowing vision

Scientists at the Harvard Department of Ophthalmology's Schepens Eye Research Institute and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) are the first to learn why the cornea, the clear window of the eye, is free of blood vessels--a unique phenomenon that makes vision possible. The key, say the resea...

Artifical cornea lets woman blind 20 years see

A severe allergic reaction to a medication robbed Elma Phifer of her vision two decades ago when she was 39. The reaction scarred her corneas and reduced the ability of her eyes to soothe their damaged surfaces by remaining moist. She came to rely upon family and friends to help her do many of th...

LSUHSC's Bazan awarded ARRA grant to preserve vision

...n and extensive damage occurs when the equilibrium between chemical messengers (lipid mediators) that are released in response to tissue injury in the cornea is lost. Dr. Bazan's research will focus on several of these mediators platelet-activating factor (PAF) which appears to play a key role contributing...

Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, June 2009

...nstrument to the patient's unique pathology. The other tools are the Corneal NanoPunch, used to enhance the healing of abrasions and erosions, and the cornea Treatment Tool, useful for delivering drugs from the array of glass spikes on the tip of the tool to the exact disease sites. Patents are pending. Thi...

Stem cell therapy makes cloudy corneas clear, according to Pitt researchers

...y of donor tissue because the procedure alters the cornea in a way that makes it unsuitable for transplantat...esearchers identified stem cells in a layer of the cornea called the stroma, and they recently showed that e...lumican, which plays a critical role in giving the cornea the correct structure to make it transparent. M...

Ambati study published in PNAS

...mier journals such as Cell and in Nature, which termed it "stunning." But these side effects could themselves find useful application, for example, in cornea transplantation, where growth of new blood and lymph vessels is believed to be a major cause of graft failure. The new findings are published in th...

Potential new herpes therapy studied

...s virus causes cold sores or fever blisters around the mouth, genital herpes, a deadly but rare type of encephalitis, and keratitis, a scarring of the cornea that leads to vision loss. HSV-2 is the more common cause of genital herpes. Existing herpes treatments work because the active ingredients target ...

Diabetes researcher gets $5M boost

...ves over a period of time would match the nerve degeneration found in arms and legs. "We want to see how well the degeneration of the nerves in the cornea matches the degeneration of nerves throughout the body, and if it matches it will mean that we can monitor diabetic neuropathy using a simple eye test...

Scientists identify the genes that cause blindness produced by corneal edema

...s caused by corneal oedema originated by the alteration of the cell barrier of corneal endothelium. When the endothelial cell barrier is unharmed, the cornea remains dehydrated and transparent. An oedema is a swelling caused by the accumulation of liquid in the tissues of the human body, including cornea...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- May 14, 2008

...OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New-generation artificial cornea could restore vision for millions worldwide Biot...er Cochran point out that disease or injury to the cornea the clear tissue covering the front of the eye i... developed countries with transplants from donors, cornea transplants are unavailable in many parts of the w...

NJIT applauds students for studies on brain injury, glaucoma and more

...remarkable instrument that will someday enable glaucoma patients to monitor their eye pressure at home. The best current method involves touching the cornea with a sterile probe that applies a very small force. The measurement is challenging and requires the supervision of an ophthalmologist. Milczarski...

Multiple species of bacteria may cause trachoma: Implications for treatment

... hands and clothing; successive infections cause scarring of the inside of the eyelid. As the eyelashes of the infected eyes turn inward they scar the cornea - the transparent tissue covering the front of the eye - leading eventually to blindness. To investigate whether other species of Chlamydiceae also ca...

New insights into how lasers cut flesh

...eans that in tissue containing significant amounts of NADH, ultraviolet lasers dont need as much power to cut effectively as people have thought. The cornea in the eye is an example of tissue that has very little NADH. As a result, it responds to an ultraviolet laser beam more like water than skin or other...

Leading reason for corneal transplants comes into focus

... the population over 40. Late in life, the dystrophy causes swelling of the cornea and can severely affect vision, making it impossible to see well even with ...amily had severe early disease with men and women equally affected, and the cornea had smaller, finer bumps." Gottsch is looking to one day use various g...

Intrinsic eye protein halts angiogenesis

...vidence that unravels the mystery of how a healthy cornea remains clear and free of blood vessels, which is ...lantation. "The standard paradigm has been the cornea is avascular because it has lots of anti-angiogeni... their own. "We want to know what it is in the cornea that produces so much of this protein which inhibi...

Study shows how herpes infects cornea, evades immune cells

... Herpes virus has an unusual strategy for infecting cornea cells that may also explain how it evades the immune system, according to a... In about one quarter of cases, the virus penetrates the first layer of the cornea to infect an inner layer, the stroma, making the disease much more difficul...

Results with newer bladeless LASIK equivalent to standard microkeratome LASIK

...rsightedness or astigmatism by reshaping the eye's cornea to alter the way the eye refracts light. LASIK inv...icrokeratome LASIK. Backscatter is haziness in the cornea that is usually invisible to the naked eye and is ...cian's office. Cell densities in all layers of the cornea also did not differ between the LASIK surgeries. ...

Promising cell protein may play role in infection and dry eye

...mor suppressing gene Rb2/p130 in the nucleus of the epithelial cells in the cornea and conjunctiva. According to the researchers, this interaction with Rb2...here is a different expression of the protein between the epithelium of the cornea and conjunctiva cells," says Massaro-Giordano, an assistant professor of op...

Australian first to save sight

... for a corneal transplant when she was on holiday in South Australia. "If this system had been in place at that time I could have come back and the cornea would have still been there for me," Mrs O'Kane said. Mrs O'Kane, who eventually underwent a transplant in July 2005, said the improvement in her s...

Scientists characterize proteome of human cornea

... Biochemistry and Molecular Biology journal. The cornea is the transparent, dome-shaped window that covers...hough it is clear and seems to lack substance, the cornea is actually a highly organized group of cells and ...t of incorrect curvature or irregular shape of the cornea and are the most common vision disorders in this c...