| Abstract Scope |
Glaucoma, proliferative diabetic retinopathy, and age-related macular degeneration are debilitating corneal eye disease conditions affecting millions causing loss of corneal transparency, vision loss, or blindness. Corneal transplantation is currently limited due to shortage of donor corneas and lack of suitable biomaterials with structural and biochemical composition of native cornea. Recently, several attempts were made to reconstruct human corneas using tissue engineering. Hydrogels are popular in corneal tissue engineering due to their high-water content, softness, flexibility and biocompatibility. A tissue-engineered cornea should be biocompatible, transparent, and possess suitable mechanical properties. A carrageenan/gelatin blend hydrogel is presented here formed initially by inducing physical cross linking and then chemical cross linking for further stabilization. The developed hydrogel was optically transparent. Results of the characterization of the physicochemical properties of the hydrogel, corresponding swelling ratios in various conditions, stiffness measurements as well as in-vitro cytocompatibility studies will be presented and discussed. |