The development of a tissue-engineered cornea: biomaterials and culture methods.

The field of corneal tissue engineering has made many strides in recent years. The challenges of engineering a biocompatible, mechanically stable, and optically transparent tissue are significant. To overcome these challenges, researchers have adopted two basic approaches: cell-based strategies for manipulating cells to create their own extracellular matrix, and scaffold-based strategies for providing strong and transparent matrices upon which to grow cells. Both strategies have met with some degree of success. In addition, recent advances have been made in innervating a tissue-engineered construct. Future work will need to focus on further improving mechanical stability of engineered constructs as well as improving the host response to implantation.