LighTopTech Corp. and global nonprofit eye bank Eversight are kicking off a 4-year collaboration to promote clinical and research-based imaging modalities for eye tissues.
First up: the players.
We’ll start with LighTopTech.
Founded in 2013 and based in Rochester, New York, the optical technology company is developing organic tissue imaging devices to (non-destructively) obtain high-resolution volumetric images of materials.
- The target areas: industrial and biomedical (noninvasive imaging and guided surgery, specifically).
- Its technology: A proprietary imaging system that combines optical coherence tomography (OCT) and Gabor Domain Optical Coherence Microscopy (GDOCM).
Give me more on this system.
Dubbed the “OCX imaging system,” this technology is designed to produce 2D and 3D images of materials such as organic tissues, polymers, and glass—rapidly and reliably, according to the company.
Its imaging capabilities: up to a maximum depth of 2 mm for composite materials and ~0.6 mm for organic tissue such as skin
- Plus: Noninvasively images subcellular structures beneath the skin surface or within the eye
- Note: The highest resolution for imaging both materials and organic tissue is 2 μm in all dimensions.
Now Eversight.
Eversight is one of the largest networks of eye banks in the United States working to:
- Recover, evaluate, and provide human eye tissues for transplantation
- Support research into curing blinding eye conditions
- Promote donation awareness
- Provide humanitarian aid across the globe
In recent news: In February 2024, Eversight announced a partnership with Emmecell Biotech to advance regenerative ocular cell therapy. Read here for details.
Give me some stats.
In 2023, the eye bank:
- Provided 13,813 tissues for transplantation
- Distributed tissues in 33 countries and facilitated training for 865 clinicians
- Provided 8,954 corneas for transplantation
- Distributed 3,525 of those corneas in 29 countries outside the U.S.
Talk more about its research capabilities.
The Cleveland, Ohio-based Eversight Center for Vision and Eye Banking Research is working to provide three key vision-related areas of research:
- Human eye tissue and biofluids
- Consultations for designing and conducting clinical studies
- Advancements in eye banking, ophthalmology, and eye/vision-related research and development (R&D)
Alrighty, now let’s talk about this partnership.
Through funding provided by the Michigan Foundation for Vision Awareness, the focal point of this collaboration is LighTopTech’s proprietary technology: the OCX system.
How it will be used: Eversight plans to integrate the system into its research and development plans by capturing images of the anterior and posterior segments of the eye.
And what will this show?
The intent is to depict diagnostic imaging for researchers to study and better understand retinal disease and retinal vision loss.
The potential of this: For the OCX system to become “a single imaging modality for detailed corneal tissue analysis.”
I’m listening …
Specifically, this integration is intended to advance Eversight’s corneal tissue evaluations for its eye bank operations.
The goal: To verify that tissue processing is suitable for various cornea surgeries and to detect anomalies that may indicate a tissue is unsuitable for transplantation.
So what will Eversight contribute?
In return, the eye bank will supply LighTopTech with data to advise on OCX software development that may also automate such eye tissue measurements as endothelial cell counting—key metrics for eye banks, Eversight noted.