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Project # 24
Out of Focus: Why Rabbit Models Miss the Mark in Predicting Posterior Capsule Opacification
| Team Lead: | Tejas Alankar |
| Other Team Members: | Katherine Zoller | Farjana Bhuiyan | Precious Obafemi | Samira Izuagbe |
| Faculty Advisor(s): | Dr. Liping Tang |
| Department: | BE |
| Project Type: | Other Undergraduate |
| Title: | Out of Focus: Why Rabbit Models Miss the Mark in Predicting Posterior Capsule Opacification |
| Abstract: | Cataracts, a major cause of blindness, are projected to affect more than 50 million people in the U.S. by 2050. Cataract surgery restores vision by replacing diseased lenses with intraocular lenses (IOLs), but up to half of patients will develop secondary cataracts because of a complication called Posterior Capsule Opacification (PCO). Companies have spent millions of dollars developing new IOLs with limited success, partly because these new IOLs are only tested in rabbits, which inaccurately predict PCO in humans. This novel investigation sought to determine if the differences in shape between rabbit lenses (sphere-shaped) and human lenses (ellipsoid-shaped) limit the ability of rabbit lenses to predict PCO potential in humans. Here, we fabricated two tissue-engineered models mimicking rabbit and human lenses and tested hydrophilic and hydrophobic IOLs; hydrophilic IOLs, known to cause high PCO, and hydrophobic IOL, known for low PCO. Our results showed both IOLs induced a high PCO response in the rabbit-shaped model while only the hydrophilic IOL triggered a high PCO response in the human-shaped model. These results solidify that our human-shaped lens model offers an accurate alternative for testing IOLs, which can be used to improve lens design and reduce PCO without animal testing. |
| Poster: | View Poster #24 (PDF) |
| Judges Scoring: | Submit Evaluation (judges only) |