Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick university and a member of the Russell Group, an association of research-intensive UK universities.

The outermost layer of the eye, the cornea, is very important in terms of focusing vision, as it allows us to see while light passes through to the retina. But with 10 million people around the world needing surgery that can prevent corneal blindness resulting from diseases and infectious disorders like trachoma, and nearly 5 million who are already suffering from total blindness due to corneal scarring from abrasions, burns, and lacerations, there just aren’t enough corneas to go around for transplant patients. 3D printed corneas, made from human stem cells, seem to be the best way to fix this problem, and a research team from Newcastle University in the UK has managed to do just that.

The team mixed stem cells (human corneal stromal cells) from a healthy donor cornea with collagen and alginate to create a 3D printable bioink, which was able to be 3D printed in concentric circles, in less than 10 minutes, to form a human cornea shape.

This stem cell bioink was 3D printed on the Inkredible 3D printer by CELLINK, which is known as the first bioprinter with clean chamber technology. The Inkredible used a pneumatic extrusion system to ensure that cells remain viable.

In addition, the Newcastle research team also showed that they could 3D print a cornea that would match the unique specifications from a patient.

According to the Internet