NIH launches competition to create lab-grown human retinas

The National Eye Institute — a branch of the National Institutes of Health — initiated the first stage of a national competition to spur the creation of miniature, lab-grown human retinas.

The NEI aims to incentivize participants to the create retina organoids by issuing more than $1 million in prize money, according to the report. Researchers at the institute said they hope to use the lab-grown retinas to examine how the organoid products respond to certain disease.

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"None of the model systems currently available to researchers match the complex architecture and functionality of the human retina," said NEI Director Paul Sieving, MD, PhD. "We are looking for new ideas to create standardized, reproducible 3-D retina organoids that can speed the discovery of treatments for diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic eye disease, both leading causes of blindness."

Currently, more than 4 million people over the age of 40 years suffer from blindness or vision impairment in the U.S. Officials expect the number will double by 2050.

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