A clear vision

With the support of RMNI, Dr. Isabelle Brunette and her team at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital of the University of Montreal created the BioFemtoVision research program to improve corneal transplants. This multidisciplinary program includes collaborators at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) and at the Laboratoire d'organogenèse expérimentale (LOEX).

Traditional corneal transplants involve removing the entire cornea from a patient's eye and replacing it with one from a donor. The donor's cornea must be shaped by hand to match the recipient's eye and sewn into place. Patients must wait for a suitable donor cornea to become available and, once they receive their transplant, face a life-long risk their body will reject it.

Dr. Brunette and her team are adapting existing laser technology and harnessing the potential of regenerative medicine to address these challenges. They are testing a device, called a femtosecond laser, to remove the diseased layers of a patient's cornea and prepare the donor cornea. Similar to the laser used commercially in laser eye surgery, the device has a deeper reach and is more efficient in cloudy, thickened corneas.

The ultimate goal is to eliminate waiting lists by using tissue engineering technology to build new corneas from a patient's own endothelial cells. The team has already demonstrated that endothelial cells can be successfully grown in the lab and transplanted back into a living eye.

According to Dr. Brunette, targeted funding opportunities like RMNI have been the key to her success. "It's very simple ( if this funding opportunity hadn't been there, we wouldn't be where we are today."