From Lab to Life: New Approach to Repair Corneas

From Lab to Life: New Approach to Repair Corneas

By Shlomo Maital

Source:  Depositphotos.com

A new study by a Technion biologist reveals that mature cells can be made to revert to stem cells  – in the context of repairing damaged corneas. “Eyes repair themselves by turning old cells back into stem cells. The eye can rebuild lost corneal stem cells by turning old cells back into stem cells, a discovery that could one day help restore vision.”

Here is the background: “The cornea keeps itself clear thanks to a small, hidden workforce. Its own limbal stem cells sit in a narrow ring at the outer rim, called the limbus. Their offspring travel inward to replace surface cells as they wear away.  A team led by Professor Ruby Shalom-Feuerstein, a stem cell biologist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), set out to see what happens when that workforce is gone. Working with mice, the researchers stripped away the entire ring of stem cells while leaving the surrounding tissue bed untouched. Through the clear cornea, they tracked the repair. The cornea grew back. Tracing individual cells showed the new stem cells were not survivors that had escaped the scalpel but ordinary mature corneal cells that had reversed course.”

That result ran against a long-held assumption. Losing a tissue’s stem cells was thought to be irreversible, ending in scarring and disease, which is why serious repair has usually meant transplanting cells from elsewhere.

“We were surprised to discover that the cornea can regenerate itself even after the destruction of all its stem cells,” said Shalom-Feuerstein.

This seminal study was published in Nature Communications. **

  ** Aged differentiated cells reverse into native stemness-like state by niche cytokines to sustain lifelong homeostasis and tissue repair

Shalini Dimri-Wagh, Swarnabh Bhattacharya, Gharam Yassen, Ofir Shorer, Aya Amitai-Lange, Anna Altshuler, Shira Hadad-Porat, Keren Yizhak, Yuval Shaked, Michael Mimouni, Beatrice Tiosano, Ramez Barbara & Ruby Shalom-Feuerstein

Nature Communications volume 17, Article number: 5743 (2026)