Cleanrooms
As the company develops its capabilities and business it continues to work closely with its STFC ITAC ( Innovation Technology Access Centre ) landlords , for example on plans to install new production and quality control equipment into the cleanroom . The ITAC maintains the cleanroom validation , troubleshoots any problems and provides training for new employees , easing the administrative load on the company . The Harwell Campus location is useful for networking , in a known brand to foreign customers and is attractive for recruiting bright scientists .
www . electrospinning . co . uk
Visionary biomedical techniques
Corneal blindness affects more than seven million people in India
The Electrospinning Company manufactured synthetic corneal transplant membranes for a first in-man clinical trial at the L . V . Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad , India , in a project run by the University of Sheffield and funded by the Wellcome Trust ’ s Affordable Healthcare for India programme .
Corneal blindness affects more than seven million people in India . Currently patients with extensive scarring of the cornea can only be treated in specialist centres with donated corneas or donated human amniotic membrane . The new technique uses a synthetic biodegradable membrane , which will be available as a sterile packaged product without any risk of disease transmission .
This makes it not only safer and cheaper but more readily available than relying on donated amniotic membranes , which can only be acquired if surgeons have access to tissue banks stocking these membranes . A very small piece of tissue from the patient ’ s unaffected eye is lightly attached to the membrane and placed onto the damaged eye . This membrane , made of the same material as dissolvable sutures , provides a secure surface for new , healthy corneal cells to grow out from the stem cells present in the tissue pieces . After a few weeks , this membrane dissolves , leaving the new cells securely attached to the eye . The new corneal surface is formed to replace the original scarred surface .
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