The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has announced the launch of a new vision loss restoration initiative: the Transplantation of Human Eye Allografts (THEA) program.
Let’s start with ARPA-H.
Established as an independent entity of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2022, ARPA-H is a research funding agency focused on supporting the development of high-impact research for biomedical and health breakthroughs.
The goal: to deliver “transformative, sustainable, and equitable health solutions for everyone” by advancing and leveraging research for real world impact.
Now what led to this initiative?
With more than 2 million Americans suffering from some form of vision impairment—and an estimated 1 million who are blind—today’s standard advanced technology of laser eye surgery and corneal transplants fail to treat the back of the eye’s nerve cell health (ie: retina and optic nerve conditions).
Per THEA, these techniques lack “a solution for the deterioration of the nerve cells necessary for vision.”
Which brings us to ….
The THEA program was launched with the intent to “enable whole functional eye transplantation to restore vision for the blind and visually impaired.”
Its purpose, and challenge, is to develop new technologies / therapies that function as regenerative solutions to preserve or regrow nerves from the eye and to the brain.
According to Program Manager Calvin Roberts, MD (former CEO and president of Lighthouse Guild International), doctors’ historic lack of success in repairing vision could be coming to an end, thanks to recent vision science and neuroscience research that, “may now help solve the hurdles of reattaching the donor eye’s optic nerve to the recipient.”
So how is it going to do this?
The program is welcoming research proposal submissions based on three technical areas:
- Retrieval of donors eyes and tissue preservation
- Optic nerve repair and regeneration
- Surgical procedures, postop care, and functional assessment
THEA plans to utilize both microsurgery techniques and gene or cell-based therapies for nerve regeneration.
Talk about this process.
ARPA-H is encouraging those interested (referred to as “prospective performers”) in submitting proposals to form teams with varied areas of technical expertise (called “teaming”).The program has even set up a THEA Teaming Profiles webpage for prospective performers to create/publish a teaming profile and seek out potential partners based on their expertise areas.
Click here to learn more about teaming profiles, and here to create your own profile.
So when’s the deadline for submissions?
A hybrid Proposers’ Day is scheduled for February 15, 2024 (click here to register).
Lastly … what’s the overarching goal of this program, on a larger scale?
“With THEA, we aim to revolutionize the reconnection of nerves to the brain and make these advancements accessible in the United States and around the globe,” Roberts stated, “with the ambition to offer an alternative to lifelong blindness.”
These techniques and therapies may also “have the potential to be applied to other types of nervous system damage, including spinal cord injury,” according to THEA, as well as improve research into brain repair.