Scientists Successfully Restore Donor Retina Response

Scientists from the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah Health have developed technology that enables donor retina cells to respond to light again. The breakthrough, published in the journal Nature, opens new opportunities for research into eye diseases and neurological disorders. The technology developed is not an eye transplant, but rather a system to maintain the function of donor retinas. The research team designed a special transportation unit that maintains the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the donor eye, and developed a retinal stimulation device to provide light stimuli while simultaneously recording the electrical activity of the cells. According to the researchers, the combination of these two technologies allows the retinal tissue to remain in a condition close to its natural function. This gives scientists the opportunity to study the human retina directly, something that was previously very difficult to do. In this study, donor eyes were obtained less than 20 minutes after death. Although the photoreceptor cells were successfully reactivated, initial experiments showed that the cells could not yet communicate with each other. The team then discovered that a lack of oxygen was the main cause of the loss of intercellular communication. After an oxygenation and nutrient system was implemented, the retinal cells generated electrical activity resembling that of a living retina. For the first time, the researchers were able to record the B-wave, an electrical signal from the human macula, after death. Lead author of the study, Fatima Abbas, PhD, explained that photoreceptor cells in the macula were still able to respond to bright light, coloured light, and even very dim flashes in donor eyes obtained up to five hours after death. Using data from over 40 human donor eyes, this approach enables more accurate retinal research compared to animal models and has the potential to accelerate the development of therapies for retinal diseases, including age-related macular degeneration. Furthermore, the researchers believe this method could be used to study other neural tissues in the central nervous system. Thus, the technology holds potential to aid research into various neurodegenerative diseases in the future. Although it cannot yet restore vision, this breakthrough provides a new way to study the human retina directly. Scientists hope this technology will serve as a foundation for developing more effective therapies for eye diseases and neurological research in the future.