Seeing the world with new eyes: Biosynthetic corneas restore vision in humans

Image: OHRI

(from Ottawa Hospital Research Institute)


A new study from researchers in Canada and Sweden has shown that biosynthetic corneas can help regenerate and repair damaged eye tissue and improve vision in humans. The results, from an early phase clinical trial with 10 patients, are published in the August 25th, 2010 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

“This study is important because it is the first to show that an artificially fabricated cornea can integrate with the human eye and stimulate regeneration,” said senior author Dr. May Griffith of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, the University of Ottawa and Linköping University. “With further research, this approach could help restore sight to millions of people who are waiting for a donated human cornea for transplantation.”

The cornea is a thin transparent layer of collagen and cells that acts as a window into the eyeball. It must be completely transparent to allow the light to enter and it also helps with focus. Globally, diseases that lead to clouding of the cornea represent the most common cause of blindness. More than a decade ago, Dr. Griffith and her colleagues began developing biosynthetic corneas in Ottawa, Canada, using collagen produced in the laboratory and moulded into the shape of a cornea. After extensive laboratory testing, Dr. Griffith began collaborating with Dr. Per Fagerholm, an eye surgeon at Linköping University in Sweden, to provide the first-in-human experience with biosynthetic cornea implantation.

Together, they initiated a clinical trial in 10 Swedish patients with advanced keratoconus or central corneal scarring. Each patient underwent surgery on one eye to remove damaged corneal tissue and replace it with the biosynthetic cornea, made from synthetically cross-linked recombinant human collagen. Over two years of follow-up, the researchers observed that cells and nerves from the patients’ own corneas had grown into the implant, resulting in a “regenerated” cornea that resembled normal, healthy tissue. Patients did not experience any rejection reaction or require long-term immune suppression, which are serious side effects associated with the use of human donor tissue. The biosynthetic corneas also became sensitive to touch and began producing normal tears to keep the eye oxygenated. Vision improved in six of the ten patients, and after contact lens fitting, vision was comparable to conventional corneal transplantation with human donor tissue.

“We are very encouraged by these results and by the great potential of biosynthetic corneas,” said Dr. Fagerholm. “Further biomaterial enhancements and modifications to the surgical technique are ongoing, and new studies are being planned that will extend the use of the biosynthetic cornea to a wider range of sight-threatening conditions requiring transplantation.”

This research was supported by grants from the Canadian Stem Cell Network, the Swedish Research Council and County of Östergötland and a European Union Marie Curie International Fellowship. Initial work in developing the biosynthetic corneas was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Recombinant human collagen type III used in formulating the biosynthetic corneas for the clinical study was provided by FibroGen, Inc., San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.

Dr. May Griffith is a Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Professor at the University of Ottawa (Faculty of Medicine) and Professor of Regenerative Medicine and Director of the Integrative Regenerative Medicine Centre at Linköping University. Dr. Per Fagerholm is a Professor of Ophthalmology at Linköping University. Dr. Neil Lagali is a senior lecturer at Linköping University. Other authors are listed in the paper.
About the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) is the research arm of The Ottawa Hospital and is an affiliated institute of the University of Ottawa, closely associated with the University’s Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences. The OHRI includes more than 1,500 scientists, clinical investigators, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff conducting research to improve the understanding, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human disease. www.ohri.ca
About Linköping University
Linköping University is organized in four faculties on three campuses. With a student population of 26,000 and 3,500 employees it is one of the major universities in Sweden. The Faculty of Health Sciences is integrated with the University Hospital and covers a broad range of research fields. Within the emerging Integrative Regenerative Medicine Centre there is a close collaboration with physicists at the Institute of Technology. www.liu.se/om-liu/?l=en 

Image: Wikipedia

The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world. - George Santayana

Ethiopia Has Halved Malaria Deaths in Just Three Years (mirrored from The Global Fund)

Image: The Global Fund

The number of people who die from malaria has been halved in just three years through the distribution of nearly 20 million insecticide-treated bed nets and widespread use of antimalaria drugs.  The dramatic fall in deaths from a disease that kills one in four people in Ethiopia was made possible with Global Fund support and a small army of health workers.

Turnaround

In 2005, only two percent of households owned an insecticide-treated net and almost half the population had no access to any health care services at all. A plan to get nets out to farming families was floundering, partly because of the sheer number of nets required and partly because of the challenge of distributing them to remote areas.

Ethiopia’s minister of health, Tedros Ghebreyesus, describes the situation in simple terms, “We were in a mess.” He led a rapid assessment and galvanized the country into a proactive response to malaria. An arrangement was made with the Global Fund to speed up the flow of funds: money allocated for three years was released for spending in just one.

An Ambitious Program Exceeded All Previous Targets

In a scaled-up program, more bed nets were distributed than had previously been planned - 20 million insecticide treated nets to protect the most vulnerable, particularly women and children for whom malaria is more dangerous due to their bodies’ inability to fight the parasite.

Health Extension Workers

The idea is simple, broaden the outreach: train two high school graduates per village to act as health advisers. Thirty thousand young women have been mobilized to transfer health skills to the entire community. Their top-up training, disease test kits and drugs are paid for by the Global Fund.

Bringing Health Services to Rural Communities

Firehiwot takes basic health services to remote villages by making home visits on foot. She talks to housewives woman-to-woman, which makes it easier to address sensitive health issues. She advises pregnant women to sleep under a bed net and ensures they know how to obtain one.

Early detection of malaria is vital for effective treatment. Firehiwot is able to carry out tests for malaria on the spot thanks to a new lightweight disposable test kit. Paracheck is much easier to use than the traditional microscope. A drop of blood is absorbed by the dip stick and results are displayed in a window, similar to a pregnancy test.

If the malaria test result is positive, Firehiwot gives patients a three-day treatment of Coartem, which is based on a plant extract called artemesinin combined with other ingredients to prevent the development of drug resistance. Before Firehiwot’s visits, families ignored malaria symptoms because the nearest health post was too far to go for help. Now they don’t fall ill so often and are happier as a result.

Prevention is Better than Cure

Preventing people from getting sick not only improves their well-being, it is also better for their livelihood and reduces the strain on the health care system. Heath Minister Tedros explains the thinking behind the scheme: “It’s the knowledge gap that is exposing people to HIV, malaria, TB, diarrhea … so the health extension workers actually help them in changing their lifestyle. They can take the responsibility of helping themselves, because they can prevent diseases on their own.”

Putting health care in the hands of the community is a good way of ensuring people get healthy and stay healthy. Grassroots health care is not costly and its impact is massive because eliminating the risk of the disease means avoiding the expenses triggered by diagnosis, treatment and follow up.

Health Minister Tedros’ commitment to fighting malaria is inspiring the continent. As chair of the international Roll Back Malaria Partnership, he is using his country’s model to inspire others in the region. Strong leadership and commitment combined with financing from the Global Fund and assistance from development partners are driving the fight against disease in Ethiopia. The only country in Africa never to have been colonized has fought off invaders in the past and is now effectively fighting off malaria.

can a game of ultimate Frisbee be one little step towards making peace possible?

Image: Ultimate Peace

These young people have found a most practical way to have fun, find camaraderie, and foster understanding by coming together through sports. Ultimate Peace is a summer camp for Israeli and Palestinian kids to meet in a safe location and simply play together, as human beings; not enemies, not rivals.

For so long, it's been the accepted wisdom in much of the world that it's best to raise your kids in a sheltered environment, where they learn only the practices, doctrines, and political convictions of their own local or idealogical community, and spend their formative years spending time only with others who are more or less the same. Such kids as these at Ultimate Peace show us that maybe, there's a much better way to grow.

Chris Abani on ubuntu: "the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me"

                                                                              
This amazing talk by Chris Abani of Nigeria, about how it takes countless acts of kindness to bring about lasting social change, and illustrates his point with moving stories, sometimes heroic, sometimes sweet, sometimes horrific.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chris_abani_on_the_stories_of_africa.html

Nicaraguan boy shares his story of his school, his new dreams and opportunities

Video: UNICEF

For more on this story, visit http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nicaragua_55478.html

The picture I used to illustrate this blog portrays my darling niece Savannah, and my Dad reaching his arms out to help her down from a big tree.
This blog is dedicated to Dad, my hero, who taught his children to read, think, and discuss, to take responsibility for our own actions, and above all, to be loving and kind to others.

Louisiana man proved innocent after 22 years in jail

Image: The Innocence Project

A long-overdue serology test very recently demonstrated that Booker Diggins, a man imprisoned for rape and armed robbery since 1988, could not have committed the crimes for which he convicted. Although the prosecutors for the State had procured blood type evidence from the rape kit at the time of the trial, they withheld it from Diggins' defense team. As a result, the jury never heard that the man who committed the rape had type A blood, while Diggins has type O.

The Innocence Project, a nonprofit founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld, has been providing legal assistance to prisoners who could potentially prove their innocence through DNA testing. To date, 258 people have been exonerated by the Innocence Project, including 17 death row inmates. The number of cases that the Innocence Project works on, however, represents only a small portion of the total number of people in prison, on death row, or even executed for crimes they didn't commit. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in the united States, 138 people in all have been exonerated from death row since 1973. Wikipedia contains a lengthy list of death row exonerees, and Northwestern University School of Law's Centre on Wrongful Convictions lists 39 people who have been executed despite compelling evidence of actual innocence. All over the country, lawyers, law students, and others donate their time and energy, working hard in the cause of justice for the wrongfully convicted, for the victims, and to protect others from the violent criminals who have gotten away and are still free to commit more crimes.

40 U.S. Billionaires Pledge Half Of Wealth To Charity (mirrored from NPR)

Image: NPR

Story by Pam Fessler


'Forty U.S. billionaires pledged Wednesday to give at least half of their wealth to charity — either during their lifetimes or after death.
That could be a big boost to nonprofits, which have suffered from the recent economic downturn....'

 Get the full story here

Matthew Leone, a Chicago musician injured while defending a woman from attack, receives outpouring of support

Image: Madina Lake's Myspace page

On the early morning of Tuesday, June 29th, Matthew Leone was walking down the street and came upon a man beating his wife. When Matthew stepped in to defend her, the man turned on him and savagely attacked him, beating him unconscious. Matthew's twin brother Nathan says that, though Matthew is slowly improving, it's going to be a long recovery, since Matthew suffered such severe blows to the head that they had to remove part of his skull to relieve the pressure from swelling. His medical bills have already soared to around $250,000, and he has no medical insurance.
After hearing of the story, help has poured in from strangers all over the world. The Smashing Pumpkins, the band most influential to Matthew and Nathan's own band, Medina Lake, played a relief concert that raised about $60,000 in ticket sales. The Leone brother's bandmates and friends have also set up a concert and auction series called Through the Pain to raise additional funds.
Hooray for Matthew, a brave and unselfish man; we all hope you heal soon!

"Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to help make others so." Robert Ingersoll

Medical trek in the mountains of Nepal treats almost 700 patients free of charge

Image: The Mountain Fund

I just found this great organization called the Mountain Fund, which works to improve access to healthcare, education and economic opportunity in mountain communities throughout the world, which include many of the poorest. Here's one of their latest exploits, as described by Ari Stern :


'This spring, The Mountain Fund took another amazing and diverse group of people from all over the world on a medical trek through the Rasuwa District of Nepal, where we have been working for the last 10 years. We had members from Canada, the US, Sweden, the UK, and Germany. While only about half the group was comprised of medical professionals, everybody in the group was fully able to contribute to the needs of the people of Rasuwa. We hosted three medical camps over the course of 10 days seeing close to 700 patients. The busiest member of our group was Pete, an optometrist from Muscatine, Iowa. He diagnosed an 8 year old with glaucoma…as well as gave some much needed glasses to a 7 year old boy whose can now really see the world for the first time. Pete, of course, was not the only busy person on the trip…everybody kept busy organizing, seeing patients, and giving out medicines.

And, as a bonus, everybody really enjoyed the trek itself. We had some wonderful comments at the conclusion of the trip. Pete, our optometrist for the trip, said “this is my 14th trip and comparing other organizations…this is the best organized, best led trip…I would certainly recommend this [trip].” Jon, a pilot, said “I was impressed with the flexibility, the lack of bureaucracy, the lack of egos….I felt like everything we were doing had the mission in mind and helping whoever needed help.” Farah, a pulmonologist from Alaska who has participated in other international medical endeavors, said “its wonderful to see a medical camp that has involved the community itself and left somebody behind to take over…that was really refreshing.”

Our three medical camps were held in Kalikastan, Thulo Syabru, and Thambauchet. The patient ailments ran the gamut of the medical spectrum ranging from skin infections to burns to gastric complaints to lung problems. The vast majority of the people in Rasuwa are subsistence farmers whose only access to medical care is that which is provided by our hospital, clinics, and the medical treks we do several times a year.

We have been fortunate enough to see a big change in not only the people’s access to healthcare in the district but also a clear improvement in infant, child, and maternal mortality. This work could not be done without the brave and ambitious people of Rasuwa, many of whom have significantly contributed to our efforts there as well as your donations and support.'