Company Grows Cornea

A Walkersville company has found a way to grow a human cornea of the eye. The corneal tissue used for the stem cell research comes people who have died and donated their organs to research.

That means there's a finite supply, said Jeffrey Janus, president of the International Stem Cell Corp. and CEO of Lifeline Cell Technology.

"We've discovered a way to grow human cornea of the eye, and it's very exciting," Janus said.

Lifeline brought the Russian scientists to the U.S. who are now using the company's stem cells while working with the University of California to try to cure eye diseases of the retina, Janus said.

The Lifeline Cell Technology company was the first group of scientists to use technology to create pluripotent human stem cell lines from unfertilized human eggs called parthenogenetic embryonic cells. These types of embryonic cells have medical advantages because they may avoid immune rejection and also they have ethical advantages because no fertilized human embryos are destroyed, Janus said.

The company began when one of Russia's leading scientists, Elena Revazova, made it her personal goal to cure diabetes when she moved to the U.S. and began to work at the Veterans Administration hospital.

"We recognized she was very talented in culturing human cells," Janus said. "She wanted to use embryonic stem cells to cure diabetes."

But there were two challenges that had to be faced, one of which was the chance of the immune system rejecting the cells. The other was the ethical controversy surrounding the use of embryonic stem cells.

"We realized if we could make stem cells from unfertilized human eggs, we would be able to solve both the immune rejection and ethical problems," Janus said. "No human embryos would be destroyed by creating stem cells from unfertilized eggs, and you could match cells to people without worrying about immune rejection."

A plan was put into action to create a company centered around Revazova.

She was the first person in the world to ever create parthenogenetic embryonic cells, and the company produced at least 12 lines of the cells, Janus said.

Lifeline's parthenogenetic embryonic stem cells have the ability to become any cell in the human body just as do ones derived from fertilized embryos.

The company has decided, rather than sell the cells for profit, to give them away for free to researchers all over the world so they can explore cures for other diseases.

I think it is amazing how science is finding new ways to advance medicine everyday. Now they have found a create human corneas. The most exciting part is that they have found a way to do it avoiding any ethical concerns through parthenogenetic embryonic stem cells and corneal tissue donated by people who have died. Since these parthenogenetic cells are formed from an unfertilized egg there is no destruction of human life. This is very encouraging and could lead to finding potential cures for many deadly diseases without any ethical concerns.