Whole-eye transplantation: Current challenges and future perspectives

Advanced 3D scaffolds for corneal stroma regeneration: a preclinical progress

Corneal stromal defects represent a significant global cause of blindness, necessitating innovative therapeutic strategies to address the limitations of conventional treatments, such as corneal transplantation. Tissue engineering, a cornerstone of regenerative medicine, offers a transformative approach by leveraging biomaterial-based solutions to restore damaged tissues. Among these, three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds fabricated using advanced techniques like 3D printing have emerged as a promising platform for corneal regeneration. These scaffolds replicate the native extracellular matrix (ECM) architecture, providing a biomimetic microenvironment that supports cell proliferation, differentiation, and tissue integration. This review highlights recent advances in the design and fabrication of 3D scaffolds for corneal stroma engineering (CSE), emphasizing the critical interplay between scaffold architecture, mechanical properties, and bioactive signaling in directing cellular behavior and tissue regeneration. Likewise, we emphasize the diverse range of biomaterials utilized in scaffold fabrication, highlighting their influence on cellular interactions and tissue reconstruction. By elucidating the complex relationship between scaffold design and biologics, this review aims to illuminate the evolution of next-generation strategies for engineering functional corneal tissue. Eventually, this review will provide a comprehensive synthesis of the current state-of-the-art in 3D scaffold-based corneal tissue engineering (CTE), offering insights that could advance progress toward effective vision restoration therapies.

Harnessing the Underutilized Potential of Lens Capsule Transplantation in Ophthalmology: A Narrative Review of Current Applications and Future Directions

The human lens capsule is a transparent and durable basement membrane routinely discarded during cataract surgery, exhibiting unique biochemical, biomechanical, and immunologic properties. This narrative review discusses validated ophthalmic applications across corneal, retinal, and glaucoma filtration surgeries. It emphasizes the capsule's emerging role as a tissue-engineering scaffold for cultivating corneal endothelial cells, limbal epithelial stem cells, and retinal pigment epithelial cells, demonstrating significant promise in regenerative ophthalmology. However, variability in harvesting techniques, small graft sizes, and limited long-term clinical data currently hinder its broader clinical implementation. Future directions highlight the necessity of standardizing capsule harvesting and preservation protocols, potentially in collaboration with eye banks, to enhance accessibility and utility. Additionally, this review explores speculative applications, including encapsulation devices for drug and cell delivery, ultraviolet cross-linking for keratoconus management, and novel scaffolds for optic nerve regeneration and retinal transplantation. While preliminary evidence strongly supports the capsule's versatility, rigorous clinical trials and comparative analyses remain essential to establish long-term safety, efficacy, and optimal surgical integration. Ultimately, harnessing this naturally available biomaterial represents a meaningful advancement in ophthalmology, opening new horizons for future research.

Bringing ophthalmology into the scientific world: Novel nanoparticle-based strategies for ocular drug delivery

The distinctive benefits and drawbacks of various drug delivery strategies to supply corneal tissue improvement for sense organs have been the attention of studies worldwide in recent decades. Static and dynamic barriers of ocular tissue prevent foreign chemicals from entering and inhibit the active absorption of therapeutic medicines. The distribution of different medications to ocular tissue is one of the most appealing and demanding tasks for investigators in pharmacology, biomaterials, and ophthalmology, and it is critical for cornea wound healing due to the controlled release rate and increased drug bioavailability. It should be mentioned that the transport of various types of medications into the different sections of the eye, particularly the cornea, is exceedingly challenging because of its distinctive structure and various barriers throughout the eye. Nanoparticles are being studied to improve medicine delivery strategies for ocular disease. Repetitive corneal drug delivery using biodegradable nanocarriers allows a medicine to remain in different parts of the cornea for extended periods of time and thus improve administration route effectiveness. In this review, we discussed eye anatomy, ocular delivery barriers, as well as the emphasis on the biodegradable nanomaterials ranging from organic nanostructures, such as nanomicelles, polymers, liposomes, niosomes, nanowafers, nanoemulsions, nanosuspensions, nanocrystals, cubosomes, olaminosomes, hybridized NPs, dendrimers, bilosomes, solid lipid NPs, nanostructured lipid carriers, and nanofiber to organic nanomaterials like silver, gold, and mesoporous silica nanoparticles. In addition, we describe the nanotechnology-based ophthalmic medications that are presently on the market or in clinical studies. Finally, drawing on current trends and therapeutic approaches, we discuss the challenges that innovative optical drug delivery systems confront and propose future research routes. We hope that this review will serve as a source of motivation and inspiration for developing innovative ophthalmic formulations.