First results more than encouraging. A team from Linköping University in Sweden announced in Nature Biotechnology have succeeded in restoring sight to three blind men. This advance, presented on August 11, was made possible by an implant designed from pig skin cells.
These artificial corneas were fitted to twenty volunteer patients suffering from keratoconus. Fourteen of them had gone blind as a result of this progressive disease. While three gained full vision thanks to the implant, all partially regained sight.
An “off-the-shelf and affordable” solution
There are already solutions for people suffering from this disease, but they require human transplants, he explained. Science and Future. The advantage of using pig skin cells is that it is an easy-to-find raw material, and therefore can be more quickly accessible to the more than 12 million people who would go blind from keratoconus.
“We went to great lengths to make sure our invention was widely available and affordable for everyone, not just the rich. That’s why this technology could be used anywhere in the world,” explained study first author Mehrdad Rafat. , in a press release.
However, you should not expect to have access to these prostheses right away. These results correspond to a first stage of human testing. Further work will be required on this solution before it is released to the people who need it.
Source: BFM TV
