Doku mühendisliği yaklaşımı ile kornea organoid modellerinin geliştirilmesine yönelik 3b biyomimetik platform geliştirilmesi

Human cornea is outermost layer of the eye and acts as a physical and biological barrier for the eye. It has a great role on vision by reflecting light to retina owing to its refractive index. According to World Health Organization (WHO), corneal diseases are one of the major reasons for blindness. Corneal transplantation and removing infected part from the cornea are two main methods for treatment of corneal diseases. However, limited number of donors have been resulted with limited amount of treatment. Hence, researchers have been working on development of alternatives to donor corneas, however current developed structures need to additional improvements to obtain more reliable corneal tissue products. For this purpose, utilizing tissue engineering approaches together with induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) biomaterials and microfluidic systems may lead promising strategies to in vitro generate corneal like tissues in a native like micro environment. This thesis study aims to develop 3 dimensional (3D) biomimetic microfluidic platform to contribute forming of more reliable 3D cornea structures in in vitro under dynamic conditions. To address these objectives different biomaterials have been investigated to find most suitable scaffold for cellular behaviors comparing the SEM images and biocompatibility of materials. Fabrication and validation of microfluidic platform that could mimic the microenvironment of corneal tissue was performed using computer software. IPSCs and cornea organoids were cultured under dynamic conditions for long term.