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UK’s first research equipment to develop new treatment for glaucoma

The problem: Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness and often when the symptoms start, the damage is irreversible. Like other parts of the body, eyes need nutrients, which are carried to the cells in a clear liquid which continuously drains away. This helps maintain pressure in the eye, but in diseases such as glaucoma, pressure builds up in the eye because the liquid can’t drain away, damaging the optic nerve and causing irreversible sight loss.

Our solution: Using grant money from The Medicash Foundation, researchers at the Department of Eye and Vision Science at the University of Liverpool have been able to build state-of-the-art Human Organ Culture Anterior Segment (HOCAS) equipment which can keep donated parts of human eyes alive for several weeks. This equipment is the first of its kind in the UK and will give researchers the rare opportunity to study the biology of the cells in eye when testing cell transplants to treat glaucoma.

Costing £24,000, this new equipment has been purpose built specifically for the Department of Eye and Vision Science and is the only model in the UK that will keep human eye tissue alive. It can run four eyes at a time and gives researchers the opportunity to test their studies on a human, living eye. This means that research will be of a much higher quality and accuracy, drastically reducing animal testing and fast tracking clinical trials. 

Dr Carl Sheridan, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Eye and Vision Science taking Andy, Neil and Linda from Medicash around the labs
Dr Carl Sheridan, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Eye and Vision Science taking Andy, Neil and Linda from Medicash around the labs