David Myung
Stanford University, CA·Biomedical Engineering
The cornea is the clear dome at the front of the eye, and it does most of the work of focusing light. Severe injury or disease can scar it, clouding vision and often causing blindness.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
Materials Science
- Topics
cornea
keratoplasty
mesenchymal stromal cells
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Test whether the stiffness, composition and crosslinking chemistry of collagen gels affect the survival of corneal mesenchymal stromal cells (c-MSCs) and their release of healing factors.
- Test whether c-MSCs inside the gel help the cornea's surface layer (epithelium) regrow mainly through paracrine signaling, messages the cells secrete to their neighbors.
- Evaluate whether gels crosslinked by bio-orthogonal copper-free click chemistry can deliver therapeutic cargo that improves regrowth of the corneal epithelium and middle layer in a living keratectomy model.
More about the research
Corneal transplants can help, but donor tissue is scarce worldwide; fewer than 2% of patients who need it can get it. A way to restore a clear cornea without donor tissue would address a major unmet need.
Why it matters
Corneal blindness affects millions of people, and very few have access to donor corneas. A gel that can replace scarred corneal tissue and support healing without sutures, light energy or cadaver tissue could one day let patients with corneal injury or disease avoid a traditional transplant. This work builds the groundwork needed before such a treatment could be tested in patients.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Gregory Borschel
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, IN·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how much corneal Schwann cells, the support cells that accompany nerve fibers, control limbal stem cell activity, using an animal model of neurotrophic keratopathy, selective cell ablation and tracking of corneal cell populations.
Dimitrios Karamichos
University of North Texas Health Science Center, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether abnormal levels of the pituitary hormones FSH and LH, and of their upstream regulator GnRH, unbalance sex hormones and alter the cornea to drive keratoconus, using cell, donor-tissue and animal models.
Anuradha Subramanian
University of Alabama in Huntsville, AL·Biomedical Engineering
Demonstrate whether continuous low-intensity ultrasound (cLIUS) drives mesenchymal stromal cells to form cartilage even in a pro-inflammatory environment, using RNA sequencing to profile the transcriptome and identify the pathways involved.
The school
Stanford University: 87 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 739 research doctorates a year.
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