Project overview
Retinal degenerative diseases are a major cause of blindness affecting millions of people worldwide and unfortunately, have no treatment. Current efforts to find a solution are based on prosthesis or by stem cell therapy implants. Prosthesis, although promising, are still far from being efficient and constitute an active research area. On the other hand, most of the late-stage retinal degenerative diseases display specific degeneration of retina’s photoreceptor cells. This underscores the need of developing and fully testing appropriate photoreceptor cell implants as therapies to restore light responses and vision.
This ambitious project represents a truly multidisciplinary effort that involves Physics (imaging and instrumentation), Mathematics (statistics and network analysis), Biomedicine (stem cell therapy), and Computation (machine learning and big data analysis). To ensure its success, the project will be be organized in different work packages with each of the partners leading their area of expertise:
- WP1 (Vall d’Hebron Institut de Recerca): PHOTORECEPTOR CELL THERAPY IN A RAT MODEL OF RETINITIS PIGMENTOSA (RP). The first objective of this project is to gain insights to early stages of human retinal development and develop human retinal models using 3D organoid technology to obtain functional photoreceptor for transplantation purpose. Then, isolated photoreceptors will be transplanted into rat model of RP to restore retinal tissue and function.
- WP2 (Institut de Ciències Fotòniques): ADVANCED IMAGING FOR VISUALIZING THE FUNCTIONAL CIRCUITRY OF RETINAS. To visualize the complex spatio-temporal electrical patterns propagated in healthy, atrofic and transplanted retinas, we will build a high-resolution fast volumetric imaging system. The microscope will be adapted to contain and properly preserve the retina state.
- WP3 (Port Informació Científica): BIOIMAGE PROCESSING ALGORITHMS AND METHODS. The development of novel algorithms for real-time processing will require analysing vast amounts of data. A robust and scalable offline analysis platform will be needed to develop deep learning models, providing high-performance access to the bulk data archive for training the neural networks and, finally, generating de connectivity maps.
- WP4 (Vall d’Hebron Institut de Recerca): EXTRAPOLATION OF PRE-CLINICAL STRUCTURAL AND CONNECTIVITY FINDINGS IN THE CLINIC. The cellular connectivity data will be correlated with already well-established techniques in the field such as funduscopic findings, the ERG, and the OCTs of the laboratory animals. This knowledge would allow us to have greater certainty about the role of the different cells and structural layers of the retina throughout the disease and after treatment.
- WP5 MANAGEMENT AND DISSEMINATION. Optimize the management and communications environment of DIGITAL RETINA; Implement proactive internal communication and early identification and resolution of technical, ethical and gender issues and ensure on schedule delivery of project activities.
It is only through the collaboration of this synergistic team that the proposed innovative research will be able to be carried out. The proposed core technologies will result in a methodical “how-to” guide for 3D functional analysis and aims at bringing a completely new perspective for the development of vision restoration strategies with the potential to change many peoples’ lives.
