“Development of a novel in-vitro biomimetic corneal stroma using microfluidics to study corneal wound healing”

Divya Subramanian, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Dallas, has received IFER funding from 2022-2024 for her project, “Development of a novel in-vitro biomimetic corneal stroma using microfluidics to study corneal wound healing.” The cornea is the part of the eye which is exposed to the outer environment and is most likely to become damaged due to various insults, so corneal wound healing is a significant clinical problem and an important medical issue. Corneal wound healing research currently relies heavily on animal models, particularly rabbits. However, differences between rabbit and human corneas make extrapolation of data across species problematic. In this proposal, Divya is planning to develop novel 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional human cell-based models of the corneal stroma for use in wound healing studies. To better mimic the native cornea stromal structure, she will be growing a human corneal keratocyte cell line on micropatterns of aligned collagen fibrils, as the geometry and topography of the cell microenvironment modulate corneal cell behavior. She will then develop a wound healing assay in this system to reduce the use of animals for this purpose.