Tissue regeneration using patients’ own cells (also known as personalised tissue regeneration) has advanced remarkably towards clinical application with the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This technology offers several advantages over the current standard treatment, namely the transplantation of stem cells from a living or deceased donor. These advantages include an unlimited resource for patient-derived cells, high flexibility for bioengineering and gene editing, and, most importantly, the elimination of the risk of rejection and the need for immunosuppression.
Our projects aim to optimise existing protocols for differentiating iPSCs into corneal stem cells for use in preclinical and clinical studies, as well as to develop protocols for differentiating iPSCs into other types of eye surface cells.
