Curing Blindness: A $46 Million Moonshot
Federal Funding Boosts Research at CU Anschutz Medical Campus
As part of a national "moonshot" to cure blindness, researchers at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus will receive as much as $46 million in federal funding over the next five years to pursue a first-of-its-kind full eye transplantation.
Interdisciplinary Approach
The CU team was one of four in the United States that received funding awards from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H. The CU-based group will focus on achieving the first-ever vision-restoring eye transplant by using "novel stem cell and bioelectronic technologies," according to a news release announcing the funding.
Collaboration and Competition
The four teams that received the funding will work alongside each other on distinct approaches, though officials said the teams would likely collaborate and eventually may merge depending on which research avenues show the most promise toward achieving the ultimate goal of transplanting an eye and curing blindness.
Challenges and Opportunities
To succeed, researchers must successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors and then successfully connect and repair the optical nerve, which takes information from the eye and tells the brain what the eye sees. A team at New York University performed a full eye transplant on a human patient in November 2023, though the procedure — while a "remarkable achievement," Pelaez said — did not restore the patient’s vision.
Current Progress
The CU team has already completed the eye transplant procedure — albeit without vision restoration — in rats. The team will next work on large animals to advance "optic nerve regenerative strategies," as well as to study immunosuppression, which is critical to ensuring that patients’ immune systems don’t reject a donated organ.
Conclusion
The effort to cure blindness is a monumental task that has the potential to unlock deeper discoveries about repairing damage to the brain and spine, as well as addressing hearing loss. With $46 million in federal funding and a team of interdisciplinary researchers, the CU Anschutz Medical Campus is poised to make significant progress toward achieving this goal.
FAQs
Q: What is the goal of the ARPA-H funding?
A: The goal is to cure blindness by achieving the first-ever vision-restoring eye transplant using novel stem cell and bioelectronic technologies.
Q: How much funding will the CU team receive?
A: The CU team will receive as much as $46 million in federal funding over the next five years.
Q: What is the significance of this research?
A: If successful, this research could unlock deeper discoveries about repairing damage to the brain and spine, as well as addressing hearing loss.
Q: What is the current progress of the research?
A: The CU team has already completed the eye transplant procedure in rats and will next work on large animals to advance optic nerve regenerative strategies and study immunosuppression.
