About this Research Topic

Background

Ocular disorders affect a large percentage of the World’s population: at least 1 billion people have near or distance vision impairment that could have been prevented or has yet to be addressed. Vision impairment impacts the life of people everywhere, and affects people of all ages, with the majority being over the age of 50.

With the aging population, eye problems are becoming more prevalent, and biomaterials have helped in recent years to improve or restore vision, improving the quality of life of many patients. Biomaterials are materials that interact with biological systems for a medical purpose: they can be used to replace or improve a function of any part of the eye, either as a therapeutic agent (treat, augment, repair, or replace a tissue function of the eye) or as diagnostic agents. New generations of biomaterials have succeeded in reducing complications and toxicity and improving biocompatibilities associated with older generations. Tissue engineering presents a new tool that is able to treat several ophthalmologic disorders.

This Research Topic is focused on the description of different biomaterials and techniques used in tissue engineering to repair or diagnose ocular disorders.

We welcome submissions that are focused on, but not limited to the following themes:

• Cornea disorders, Artificial corneas
• Conjunctiva, Ocular surface, retina
• Ocular regenerative medicine, ocular implants
• Ophthalmic bioactive materials
• Crosslinked hydrogels and scaffolds
• Bioprinting, electrospinning, lithography techniques
• Genetic modulation
• Cellularization and decellularization processes
• Clinical trials

Keywords: biomaterials, tissue engineering, ocular disorders restoration, therapeutic agent, diagnostic agent, artificial corneas, ocular regenerative medicine, ocular implants, ophthalmic bioactive materials, bioprinting, electrospinning, lithography techniques

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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