Cell therapy that repairs cornea damage with patient's own stem cells achieves positive phase I trial results

, the patients who were followed for 12 months experienced restored cornea surfaces—two were able to undergo a corneal transplant and two reported significant improvements in vision without additional treatment.

"Our early results suggest that CALEC might offer hope to patients who had been left with untreatable vision loss and pain associated with major cornea injuries," said principal investigator and lead study author Ula Jurkunas, MD, associate director of the Cornea Service at Mass Eye and Ear and an associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School.

In CALEC, stem cells from a patient's healthy eye are removed via a small biopsy and then expanded and grown on a graft via an innovative manufacturing process at the Connell and O'Reilly Families Cell Manipulation Core Facility at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. After two to three weeks, the CALEC graft is sent back to Mass Eye and Ear and transplanted into the eye with corneal damage.

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