Millions in funding for stem cell research on the eye

As part of the EU’s MSCA funding line, the Stem-Core project at the University Hospital Cologne’s Department of Ophthalmology, among others, is being funded with over 4 million euros. As part of Horizon Europe, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions are the European Union’s flagship funding program for doctoral training and contribute to building Europe’s research and innovation capacity by investing in the long-term careers of excellent researchers.

The Stem-Core (Stem Cell Therapy Development for Corneal Epithelium Regeneration) project consists of 10 academic partners in 9 EU countries and has two objectives:
(i) To foster the next generation of scientists: to address the unmet need in the field of ocular stem cell research, STEM-CORE will provide comprehensive training for the next generation of (biomedical) researchers, giving them a complete toolkit for innovation and careers in ocular regenerative medicine and beyond.
(ii) Development of new and safe therapeutic approaches using human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiLSCs) in blinding ocular stem cell diseases: The generation of stem cells that match or even enhance the regenerative capacity of LSCs and thus provide a solution for the treatment of various forms of ocular limbal deficiency that would otherwise lead to blindness.
STEM-CORE aims to develop and characterize robust hiLSCs that form the basis for an affordable and sustainable cell therapy for the treatment of corneal blindness caused by stem cell deficiency.

The project leaders Dr. Maria Notara and Prof. Claus Cursiefen are both also Project Leaders in the Ophthalmology SFB 1607. “The SFB 1607 projects and stem cell research in Stem-Core will have a positive influence on each other,” says Prof. Cursiefen, the SFB’s spokesperson. “The MSCA projects in Cologne will mainly focus on the immunological aspects of stem cell transplantation in various eye diseases,” says Dr. Notara, co-head of the proposal.