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Portable device could make functional eye transplants a reality


Despite what some movies may suggest, it's currently impossible to transplant functional, seeing human eyeballs. Scientists are taking a big step in that direction, however, with the development of an eye-transplant device known as the eye-ECMO.

The idea is that when an eye is removed from a brain-dead donor's body before their clinical death occurs (and with their family's consent), it gets placed in a portable machine – the eye-ECMO – which continuously pumps warmed, oxygenated blood mixed with a "unique solution" in and out of the organ. From left: Alexander Carrieri, Atharva Dapse, William Raeter, Ashutosh Agarwal and Matthew Koble surround the eye-ECMO device that they created and recently tested with a donor eye at the McKnight Vision Research CenterJoshua Prezant/University of Miami In an initial test of the technology, a prototype device was able to keep a donor human eye viable for several hours after extraction.

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