UM biomedical engineers and ophthalmologists are developing a device to keep a human eye alive and functional outside the body during an eye recovery and transplantation process. This is a huge challenge because the eye requires a constant flow of oxygenated blood, says Ashutosh Agarwal.
The team created a smaller version of a device typically used in heart and lung bypass procedures and put it to work pumping oxygenated blood in and out of an eye that was recently recovered from a donor, keeping it alive for several hours. They had also created an “eye-HOLDER” to safely transport the donor eye between the operating room and the lab to determine tissue viability. It was one positive step on a long, complex path. “This could open up medical advancements in terms of whole-eye transplants to try and cure blindness,” says Agarwal.
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