Transcriptome analysis of human cornea tissue
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Single-cell gene expression analysis of human cornea epithelial and endothelial cells for the development of novel cell conversions and advanced medicinal therapy products (ATMPs) that restore vision loss after corneal blindness.
IRAS ID
276001
Contact name
Geraint Parfitt
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Mogrify
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Corneal transplants (keratoplasty) are used to surgically treat corneal disease, however, they are not effective in the treatment of epithelial defects, such as limbal stem cell deficiency, as they do not replace the stem cells located at the peripheral cornea. Furthermore, there is a shortage of donor cornea tissue in the UK for keratoplasty, particularly in cases of corneal endothelial dystrophy, a condition that leads to cell death in the corneal endothelial cell layer and loss of sight.
We propose to overcome these issues by developing novel cell therapies to corneal diseases, including limbal stem cell deficiency and Fuch's endothelial corneal dystrophy. Our project is based on the conversion of readily available source cells, such as skin fibroblasts, to cornea epithelia and endothelia cells for transplantation. To achieve this, Mogrify has developed an algorithm that predicts the optimal set of transcription factors to convert any cell type from RNA-sequencing data of source and target cell types. Therefore, we seek to perform RNA-sequencing of human primary corneal limbus and endothelium to establish the factors required for their conversion from source cells.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/EE/0067
Date of REC Opinion
8 Apr 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion