Grant: Project Grant

Despite dozens of clinical trials, and countless animal trials, to regenerate the retina with stem cell transplants, none have solved the challenge successfully. This is because the retina has many layers, and all layers are necessary in order to permanently restore vision in patients with advanced retinal degeneration - ~1 million patients in Canada and >50 million worldwide. This results in a staggering amount of suffering and considerable global economic burden of 1/3rd of a trillion dollars (USD) annually for age-related macular degeneration alone. The millions of patients that suffer from advanced, diabetes-related or inherited, retinal degeneration add to these costs. Current stem-cell suspension transplants can only replace a single retinal layer. Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) transplants can delay further degeneration, but they cannot replace dead photoreceptors. Photoreceptor transplants can restore vision, but only briefly since the diseased RPE cannot maintain the new photoreceptor graft. Current scaffold- or sheet-based transplants can be multi-layered. However, they provide limited retinal coverage, result in higher levels of surgical trauma than suspension injection, can form inappropriate graft structure, and can cause additional cell death - in many cases, scaffolds harm the layer they were designed to regenerate. Given this, there is considerable need for simple and safe replacement of multiple retinal layers. Here, we propose to develop a new technology that organizes subretinal graft (including RPE and photoreceptors) into correct orientation and layering with wide coverage. In the future, this therapeutic will be administered using standard surgical techniques and infrastructure and will offer tangible hope for those suffering from vision loss due to retinal degeneration.