Most of the world’s leading causes of blindness are conditions that damage the eye’s retina. Diabetes, genetic conditions, and aging can all cause the retina to deteriorate, leading to vision loss for millions of people. Because human eyes are so different from the eyes of mice and other animal models, these conditions have been difficult to study. But scientists at U of U Health have opened the door to studying the function of both healthy and diseased retinas in human eyes donated after death.

Neurons in the retina quickly stop signaling after a person dies. But Frans Vinberg, PhD, neuroscientist at the John A. Moran Eye Center, and collaborators have figured out how to protect and revive postmortem retinas so they can be used in research. Vinberg and his colleagues found that the loss of signaling in postmortem retinas came down to oxygen deprivation and changes in pH. If donated eyes could be collected quickly enough to prevent severe oxygen deprivation—which they found meant retrieving the tissue in the first half-hour after death—and stored in a solution with the right pH balance, they could restore the most essential function of cells in the retina: communicating with one another in response to light. The team’s approach has changed the way scientists study diseases that cause blindness and might one day bring scientists closer to making donated retinas viable for transplantation.

References:

Seeing the Light | PI: Frans Vinberg, PhD