Argon Cold Plasma-A Novel Tool to Treat Therapy-resistant Corneal Infections.

Purpose: To test whether therapy-resistant corneal infections can be successfully treated with argon cold plasma to reduce or eliminate pathogen microorganisms without affecting corneal cell viability.

Design: First-in-human case series and experimental study.

Methods: Cold plasma effects on viability of primary human corneal limbal epithelial cells were studied using exposure times from 0.

The influence of donor factors on corneal organ culture contamination.

Purpose: To evaluate the contamination rate and the corresponding spectrum of microbes and to identify donor risk factors for corneal organ culture contaminations.

Methods: A total of 3306 organ-cultured donor corneas were included in the study. We performed a retrospective database analysis to evaluate donor factors such as gender, age, death-to-explantation interval (DEI), procurement site and cause of death and to determine their influence on donor cornea contaminations.

Self-Complementary Adeno-Associated Virus Vectors Improve Transduction Efficiency of Corneal Endothelial Cells.

Transplantation of a donor cornea to restore vision is the most frequently performed transplantation in the world. Corneal endothelial cells (CEC) are crucial for the outcome of a graft as they maintain corneal transparency and avoid graft failure due to corneal opaqueness. Given the characteristic of being a monolayer and in direct contact with culture medium during cultivation in eye banks, CEC are specifically suitable for gene therapeutic approaches prior to transplantation.