Blind people regain sight thanks to an implant designed with pig skin cells

The researchers say they want to design a solution that is affordable and easy for everyone. The first results are more than encouraging. A team from Linköping University in Sweden announced in Nature Biotechnology that they had succeeded in restoring sight to three blind people. This breakthrough, unveiled on August 11, was made possible thanks to an implant designed from pig skin cells. These artificial corneas were installed on twenty volunteer patients with keratoconus. Fourteen of them had become blind as a result of this progressive disease. If three obtained complete vision thanks to the implant, all have partially regained their sight.An “available and affordable” solutionSolutions already exist for people who suffer from this disease, but require human grafts, such as explains Sciences et Avenir. The advantage of using pig skin cells is that it is an easy to find raw material, and which can therefore be more quickly accessible to the more than 12 million people who would be blind due to ‘a keratoconus. “We went to great lengths to ensure that our invention would be widely available and affordable to everyone and not just the wealthy. That’s why this technology could be used anywhere in the world,” explained the first study author, Mehrdad Rafat, in a press release. However, do not expect to have access to these prostheses immediately. These results correspond to a first stage of testing in humans. It will be necessary to continue working on this solution before it is put on the market for the people who need it.