10/14/21, 6:04 PM No surgery, just a drop of this liquid may fix damaged cornea - The Times Of India - Mumbai, 10/14/2021 https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/PrintArticle.aspx?doc=T OIM%2F2021%2F10%2F14&entity=ar00904&ts=202110140016. 1/4 TOI + EXCLUSIVE No surgery, just a drop of this liquid may fix damaged cornea A Bengaluru Firm's 'Liquid Cornea' Could Restore Vision In Lakhs Of Indians Waiting For Corneal Transplants Pankaj Mishra Rampratap Sinha, a labourer in Laheriasarai, Bihar, was cutting logs when a wood nail flew into his left eye and pierced the cornea. Doctors told him he would need a corneal transplant to restore vision in the eye. But finding a cornea isn't easy. You can get one only from a cadaver donor - a dead person. And the waiting list grows longer every year because where 1 lakh corneal transplants are required annually, only 25,000 are actually done. Over 10 lakh Indians have corneal blindness in both eyes. "The biggest limitation of how we're tackling this currently is that our supply is dependent on donors, and there's a massive gap between demand and supply," says Virender Sangwan, an eye surgeon who has treated patients in the far corners of the country. Different approach Sangwan is a big believer in technology. He was one of the very few doctors in the world using stem cell technology back in the early-2000s. For some years now he has been involved in something far more advanced - regenerative medicine - which aims to replace human tissue with artificial cells. Companies such as Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in the US, and Pandorum Technologies in India, have made great progress in this space where everything from replacing burnt skin to testing cosmetic products without killing animals is being tried. Globally, startups like Organovo, Tissium, CARMAT, SynCardia and Singaporebased Cornea Biosciences have also joined the field. The core idea is to help the affected organs grow back their cells. Some human organs, such as the liver, can regenerate themselves after losing parts to cancer or other illnesses. "We want the cornea to do the same," says Arun Chandru, co-founder of Bengalurubased Pandorum Technologies. Sangwan is part of Pandorum's efforts to bioprint the human cornea. What is bioprinting? Think of it as 3D printing, except that cells and biomaterials are used instead of plastics. Now Pandorum, in association with the century-old Dr Shroff Charity Eye Hospital in Old Delhi's Daryaganj, has developed a 'liquid cornea' made of gel and polymers that helps regenerate corneal tissues. Pandorum approached the hospital when it needed medical infrastructure to take its bioengineered cornea project ahead. A few years and several crores of rupees later, the Shroff-Pandorum Cornea Regeneration (SP-CORE) unit is producing great results from the Daryaganj campus under Sangwan's guidance. Healing gel 10/14/21, 6:04 PM No surgery, just a drop of this liquid may fix damaged cornea - The Times Of India - Mumbai, 10/14/2021 https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/PrintArticle.aspx?doc=T OIM%2F2021%2F10%2F14&entity=ar00904&ts=202110140016. 2/4 The liquid cornea that is now being tested on animals at Dabur Research Foundation, a leading contract research organisation, is an answer to one of Sangwan's guiding questions: "Why can't we replace just the damaged part of the cornea instead of attempting a complete transplant?" Animal testing has been successful so far, and researchers are readying for human trials as soon as they get permission, hopefully sometime in 2022. For Sangwan, the journey to finding solutions to corneal blindness beyond just replacement surgeries began over a decade ago. In 2009, along with Sheila MacNeil at the University of Sheffield, he started using stem cells to treat blindness. However, after almost 17 years of use, the technology "fails one critical test: it fails to reach a large number of patients because it requires a high level of infrastructure investment," the doctors wrote in their 2019 article in the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology. This is where Sangwan's association with Pandorum comes in, because the liquid cornea will allow patients a chance to regrow damaged corneas with minimal surgical intervention. "If I can treat patients without them having to come to me, and we use technology in a way that they don't have to waste time in the doctor's clinic or on the road, that will be the pinnacle. For cornea (surgeries), I think it is eminently possible," Sangwan said in an earlier podcast. Pandorum's Chandru says the most significant advantage of the liquid cornea is its ability to reach where conventional eye banks can't go. "Simply put, we will scoop out the scar and put a drop of this liquid cornea, which solidifies when treated with light," he explains. This process works far better than stitching together a donor's cornea to treat a patient. "It doesn't need any stitching, we don't need any donor cornea, and the drop fills the gap like a liquid in a mould." The technique, however, has its limitations. For instance, the liquid cornea is not effective when the entire cornea is damaged. But what it will do is leave cadaver corneal transplants for those with extensive cornea damage. Sangwan is upbeat. "The question isn't if this will work; it's more about how effective this can get," he says. If Pandorum's human trials for liquid cornea are successful, it could change the shape of eye surgeries in future. It could also put India on the bioengineering map. 10/14/21, 6:04 PM No surgery, just a drop of this liquid may fix damaged cornea - The Times Of India - Mumbai, 10/14/2021 https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/PrintArticle.aspx?doc=T OIM%2F2021%2F10%2F14&entity=ar00904&ts=202110140016. 3/4 (Top) Some of the equipment used by Pandorum Technologies in its efforts to bioprint the human cornea. After conducting experiments on rabbits, Pandorum researchers say the liquid cornea treatment is working. (Below) Dr Virender Sangwan along with a team of researchers 10/14/21, 6:04 PM No surgery, just a drop of this liquid may fix damaged cornea - The Times Of India - Mumbai, 10/14/2021 https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/PrintArticle.aspx?doc=T OIM%2F2021%2F10%2F14&entity=ar00904&ts=202110140016. 4/4 Scan this QR code to read the full story online
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