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Mass Eye and Ear Doctors Collaborate with Dana-Farber to Rebuild Damaged Corneas Using Patients' Own Stem Cells for the First Time in the U.S.

In This Article

  • Surgeons at Mass Eye and Ear are the first in the United States to have replaced the eye surface of patients who each experienced chemical burns to one eye by using their own stem cells taken from the other healthy eye
  • The technique is known as cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cell transplantation (CALEC)
  • Four patients have been treated since the trial kicked off about two years ago

Surgeons at Massachusetts Eye and Ear are the first in the United States to have replaced the eye surface of patients who each experienced chemical burns to one eye—by using their own stem cells taken from the other healthy eye—in a technique known as cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cell transplantation (CALEC).

Four patients have been treated since the trial kicked off about two years ago.

The CALEC technique was developed by researchers at Mass Eye and Ear, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children's Hospital.

"Using the patient's own stem cells is a big step for regenerative medicine," said lead researcher Ula V. Jurkunas, MD, a cornea and refractive surgeon at Mass Eye and Ear and associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. "With this clinical trial, we hope to pave the way for better care for patients with corneal blindness, who have long needed better solutions for their condition."

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