Once they have been transplanted, it takes time for the cells to grow, so the researchers followed the patients for a year. It involves removing stem cells from the patient’s healthy eye, cultivating them in the laboratory for two to three weeks and then transplanting them into the damaged eye, said Jurkunas, who is the associate director of the Cornea Service at Mass Eye and Ear, a member of Mass General Brigham in Boston. That only one eye is injured is important for the procedure. In a Phase 1 or “proof of concept” trial, four patients who all had chemical burns in one eye underwent CALEC transplants. Ula Jurkunas and colleagues have demonstrated that the procedure - known as cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cell, or CALEC, transplantation - is safe. In a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances, Dr. Limbal stem cell deficiency is one of the main causes of corneal blindness, which affects 6 million people worldwide. These stem cells are from the limbus, a zone of tissue around the cornea that generates transparent cells that protect and heal the eye’s surface. Chemical burns and accidents can result in severe cases, like his, but overwearing contact lenses, multiple eye operations and inflammatory conditions are also causes. The accident triggered an eye condition called limbal stem cell deficiency, which can lead to painful ulcers, clouding of the cornea and blindness. Before his injury, Nick Kharufeh was learning to fly planes. His dreams to become a pilot seemed to have come to an end. ![]() I didn’t want them to see me with a messed-up face.” ![]() ![]() “I didn’t even tell my friends what had happened to me, because I didn’t want them to ask questions. His eyelid was also damaged, and in the months that followed, the eye remained completely white and nonfunctioning. After he was rushed to the hospital, Kharufeh, now 26, found out he hadn’t completely lost his eye, as everyone feared - but doctors told him that they might have to remove it and that there wasn’t much they could do.
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