New Research Data - DALK

[Sweet]

Jay thanks for this, it did make interesting reading!

It will be good when the DALK results come out. Hopefully i won't need a graft in my right eye but you never know!!

Hoping you are doing ok?

Sweet X x X

[jayuk]

Doing well thanks Claire

Just something Id add...after John made the comment about Freeze Dried Corneas.....

J

Keratec Eye Bank

The Keratec Eye Bank and corneal research laboratory is situated in the Department of Anatomy & Developmental Biology. The eye bank was founded in 1989, and is run by the charity Keratec (Registered No: 803386).

We retrieve eyes from donors within the St George's NHS Trust hospital group. In the eye bank, corneas are stored in an organ culture system at 34°C. This allows preservation of the cornea in a viable state for several weeks. Corneal tissue stored in this way is used for full-thickness corneal grafting or penetrating keratoplasty. In the eye bank, the viability of the corneal endothelium is assessed before the tissue is used for transplantation. If the cellular viability of the donor tissue is inadequate for use in a penetrating graft, the tissue may still be used for transplantation as a lamellar graft.

When a lamellar or partial thickness corneal graft is performed, the use of freeze-dried or lyophilised tissue is beneficial, as there is no risk of graft rejection, and the graft recipient is not sensitized to any donor antigens. Keratec is the only eye bank in the UK to preserve corneas by freeze-drying. We also prepare lathed lyophilised corneal lenticules for use in keratophakia and epikeratophakia surgery. For this we use a unique dry-state ambient-temperature lathing technique, to cut the corneal tissue to the shape required by the ophthalmic surgeon.

One of our current areas of research is corneal endothelial cell processing. Recent developments in corneal transplant surgery techniques have made it possible to restore corneal transparency in patients with endothelial failure by transplanting endothelial cell sheets into the eye, without the need to replace the whole cornea. We are working on methods of preparing endothelial cells for transplantation to facilitate the surgery and improve the outcomes.

http://www.sgul.ac.uk/depts/keratec-eye ... k_home.cfm

[John Smith]

Thanks Jay,

Yes, my consultant comes from St. Georges! I know that John Dart said in his conference talk that Chad Rostron was unique... and now we know why!