BioSurface Technology Inc. data

Researchers at BSRF and The Schepens Eye Research Institute reported the ability to grow coherent sheets of human limbal cells from biopsies of 1 mm2, using the culture system optimized for epidermal cells. In the normal eye, new tissue is believed to be formed from stem cells at the limbus, the outer edge of the cornea.

After growth in culture, the cell sheets were transplanted under the skin of nude mice to test their corneal tissue-forming potential. Within four days of transplantation, cultured limbal epithelial cells formed an epithelium 5-6 cell layers thick. The transplanted cells attached and reformed a multilayered, corneal-like epithelium, producing appropriate attachment and structural proteins, according to the article in Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. ...