Application deadline: 3rd March
Interviews to be held: 31 March 2021
Corneal disease affects millions of people worldwide with higher prevalence in developing countries. Corneal transplantation and the use of membranes as cell carriers (amniotic membrane, AM) have been relatively successful. Unfortunately, AM is costly and its availability is limited.
Researchers at Sheffield have been working together with LV Prasad Institute (LVPEI, India) with the aim of delivering new alternatives for simplifying corneal treatments and therefore increasing their accessibility. One of our approaches has been the development of a synthetic AM substitute that includes microfeatures to mimic the limbal niches of the cornea. Limbal stem cells are believed to reside in the limbus in well-define microenvironments or niches; these niches provide physical support to the limbal stem cells. Our first prototype niche-containing materials were regarded by our clinical collaborators at LVPEI as potentially very useful to assist them at the time of surgery. These niche structures could be use as guiding points and as points for securing tissue explants to the delivery membranes avoiding the use of fibrin glue (fibrin is expensive and not available in many countries and requires considerable expertise in its use).
Therefore, in this project we aim to design and manufacture a new microfabricated corneal membrane with improved partially enclosed niche designs, able to retain the corneal tissue explants delivered during SLET surgery (Simple Limbal Epithelial Transplantation). The project also will aim to understand the biological contribution of incorporating such niche structures to the membranes using an ex vivo corneal model previously developed and optimised at Sheffield.
Main questions to be answered
The main questions to be answered will be :
1) Main Manufacturing Challenges:
a) Can we use electrospinning and 3D-printing approaches to design a new niche structure which is partially enclosed and able to self-hold a tissue explant (~500 µm size)?
b) Can we incorporate these niche designs within a cell delivery membrane and can the degradability and the mechanical stability of this microfabricated membrane be controlled?
2) Biological Questions:
a) How will epithelial and stromal cells residing in the tissue explants respond to different niche morphologies and sizes?
b) Would these niche structures have an impact in differentiation/migration pathways?
c) How these niche structures will impact on the regeneration of a wounded corneal epithelium
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Biomedical Materials
This project is part of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Biomedical Materials. All available projects are listed here.
Find out how to apply, with full details on eligibility and funding here.
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