Three patients in Australia are the first humans to have their sight restored using their own corneal stem cells. Of these three patients, two were legally blind and one had limited vision (could read only the largest row of a vision chart).

A team at the University of New South Wales in Australia extracted adult corneal stem cells from the patients’ good eyes, and cultured them on extended wear contact lenses.  They then cleaned the patients’ corneas, and they began wearing the lenses.

Within 10-14 days, the stem cells re-entered the cornea and began to recolonize it.  UNSW’s Dr Nick Di Girolamo describes, “The procedure is totally simple and cheap.  Unlike other techniques, it requires no foreign human or animal products, only the patient’s own serum, and is completely non-invasive.”

The two legally blind patients can now read the top row of a vision chart, and the visually impaired patient can now read enough to get their driver’s license.

It has been a year and  half since the procedures; how long will the effects last? The cornea has no blood supply (it gets its oxygen through diffusion from the air), so it becomes a question of whether the patients’ tear fluid alone can sustain the new tissue in the long term.