In one of those "ugh THAT is so gross" stories, New Scientist is reporting that Garret Matthew, a biophysicist at the University if Florida in Tampa, has developed a design for artificial corneas. The "ugh" part is that the design uses sea cucumbers.
A traditional cornea implant entails replacing the damaged transparent layer at the front of the eye with tissue form a human donor. However, the severe shortage of human donors has let scientists to look for articificial means to create a structure that is optically clear and biocompatible.
Matthews and his team have done just that. They have developed an artificial cornea made from tiny collagen fibers extracted from the sea cucumbers. When the fibers are placed in a centrifuge, they self assemble into layers that are vertically aligned. This result is very similar to the tissue in the corneas of mammals.
My only question is who thought of "let's take one of those sausage like sea cucumbers, collect some collagen from it, shake it around a whole lot and see if we can make artificial corneas out of it." Genius or madness?
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