Corneal damage is the fourth leading cause of blindness, resulting in significant social and economic burden to patients, their family and society.
The current approach of corneal transplantation using donor corneas is limited by availability and poor long-term outcomes due to rejection and other complications. Corneal limbal stem cells (LSC), located in the periphery of the cornea, have the inherent ability to regenerate the cornea epithelium. Therefore, developing LSC-like cells that can be produced in large quantities, have low immunogenic risk and are readily transplantable, will provide an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution to restore vision and to revolutionize treatments for corneal blindness.
The interdisciplinary iCorneaTherapy project brings together scientists from Radboud University (RU) in the Netherlands and StemSight (STE), a spin-off company of Tampere University in Finland. The project aims to characterize a promising stem cell technology owned by STE, induced pluripotent stem cell-derived transplantable LSC progenitors (iLSCp) that are hypoimmunogenic and can be cultured and cryopreserved in large quantity.
The characterization of these iLSCp before and after transplantation will be performed with state-of-the-art single-cell RNA-seq analyses at Radboud University. This constitutes a major step towards the commercialization of a viable stem cell product for corneal transplantation. The specific objectives as follows:
- Characterize molecular phenotypes of iLSCp and establish quality control standards for each cell production step;
- Deliver a full quality control system.
The project is expected to yield essential information on the quality and safety of these transplantable iLSCp, required for commercialization of these cells. The subsequent phases of the project will focus on completing regulatory requirements and optimizing the cell product, if necessary. Once established, these transplantable iLSCp will serve as a sustainable and affordable cell source for corneal transplantation therapies.
