{"id":3765,"date":"2024-12-05T17:44:35","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T22:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/?p=3765"},"modified":"2024-12-05T17:44:35","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T22:44:35","slug":"moonshot-to-cure-blindness-through-eye-transplants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/2024\/12\/05\/moonshot-to-cure-blindness-through-eye-transplants\/","title":{"rendered":"Moonshot to Cure Blindness Through Eye Transplants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Curing Blindness: A $46 Million Moonshot<\/strong><\/p>\n

Federal Funding Boosts Research at CU Anschutz Medical Campus<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Interdisciplinary Approach<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Collaboration and Competition<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Challenges and Opportunities<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 \u2014 while a "remarkable achievement," Pelaez said \u2014 did not restore the patient’s vision.<\/p>\n

Current Progress<\/strong><\/p>\n

The CU team has already completed the eye transplant procedure \u2014 albeit without vision restoration \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

FAQs<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q: What is the goal of the ARPA-H funding?
\nA: The goal is to cure blindness by achieving the first-ever vision-restoring eye transplant using novel stem cell and bioelectronic technologies.<\/p>\n

Q: How much funding will the CU team receive?
\nA: The CU team will receive as much as $46 million in federal funding over the next five years.<\/p>\n

Q: What is the significance of this research?
\nA: If successful, this research could unlock deeper discoveries about repairing damage to the brain and spine, as well as addressing hearing loss.<\/p>\n

Q: What is the current progress of the research?
\nA: 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-wellness"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDP-L-CUANSCHUTZBLINDNESS245x.jpg?w=1024&h=663&w=1024&resize=1024,662&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3767,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765\/revisions\/3767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}