Designing hydrogel adhesives for corneal wound repair.

Today, corneal wounds are repaired using nylon sutures. Yet there are a number of complications associated with suturing the cornea, and thus there is interest in an adhesive to replace or supplement sutures in the repair of corneal wounds. We are designing and evaluating corneal adhesives prepared from dendrimers--single molecular weight and highly branched polymers. We have explored two strategies to form these ocular adhesives. The first involves a photocrosslinking reaction and the second uses a peptide ligation reaction to couple the individual dendrimers together to form the adhesive. These adhesives were successfully used to repair corneal perforations, close the flap produced in a LASIK procedure, and secure a corneal transplant.