The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has granted a multimillion-dollar moonshot project award to researchers from Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
The purpose: To support the agency’s Transplantation of Human Eye Allografts (THEA) program in its mission to transplant an entire human eye.
First, talk about ARPA-H.
HHS’s ARPA-H is a research funding agency that supports and advances high-potential, high-impact biomedical and health research that otherwise wouldn’t be accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity.
The goal: To leverage research advances for real-world impact and provide health solutions.
And this THEA program?
Launched in January 2024, this program is a vision loss restoration initiative that aims to transplant an entire human eye and—as a result—restore vision for the blind and visually impaired.
The challenge: To develop new technologies and therapies that operate as regenerative solutions to preserve or regrow nerves from the eye to the brain.
And how does this grant play into this?
As we previously reported when the program was launched, THEA opened the proverbial door to research proposal submissions that focused on three technical areas—with the plan to utilize both microsurgery technology and gene or cell-based therapies for nerve regeneration.
Which brings us to …
This moonshot project award.
The recipients: Among the Bascom Palmer and Miller School team of researchers are co-principal investigators:
- Daniel Pelaez, PhD
- Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Miller School
- David Tse, MD
- Oculoplastic surgery and orbital disease expert, Bascom Palmer; Professor of Ophthalmology, Miller School
And how will the team conduct this transplant?
To put it broadly: Through a microsurgical and oculoplastic approach involving optic nerve regeneration.
Specifically: Researchers plan to surgically recover a live human eye and maintain its function for vision restoration via organ transplantation.
- Then: Using microsurgery and oculoplastic procedures, the eye will be placed in the right position before attaching the muscles and blood vessels, and—finally—reconnecting the optic nerve.
“Maintaining blood flow to the eye throughout the procedure is essential for the survival of the transplanted ocular tissue and functional sight,” Bascom Palmer noted.
And this process will include …
Three key steps, according to researchers:
- Developing a workflow for recovering a donor’s eye
- Creating a method for eye preservation
- Creating a technique for evaluating the viability of retinal tissue for transplantation
As for the transplant itself: This will involve the entire eye, including the eyeball, blood supply, and optic nerve connecting to the brain—”considered a significant challenge in the effort to cure blindness.”
So, what type of eye conditions are being targeted?
While the cornea has successfully undergone transplantation to target specific types of vision loss, this new approach goes beyond that to target debilitating eye conditions such as:
- Glaucoma
- Diabetic retinopathy
And, outside of the ocular space, the potential of this approach may also extend to patients with spinal cord injuries and other nerve-related afflictions, according to Eduardo Alfonso, M.D., director and chair of Bascom Palmer.