ECaBox Perfuses Human Donor Eyes for 24 Hours, Preserving Retinal Light Response in Cadaver Pairs

Pia Cosma’s team at the Centre for Genomic Regulation built ECaBox to deliver oxygenated perfusate via the ophthalmic artery at controlled temperature and pressure. Pig eyes from a slaughterhouse served as the initial model; room-temperature and 4 °C storage both produced rapid cell shrinkage and loss of electroretinogram signals within 24 h. Perfused eyes regained measurable light responses within 15 min and maintained viability past 10 h. The same protocol was then applied to 12 eyes from six deceased donors, confirming retinal preservation only in the perfused member of each pair.

Standard static cold storage used for corneas fails for whole globes because the retina’s high metabolic demand causes irreversible ischemia within hours. ECaBox mirrors normothermic machine perfusion platforms already deployed for liver and kidney grafts, yet operates at smaller scale and lower flow rates. The device’s transparent window also enables real-time optical coherence tomography, an observation absent from prior animal eye-transplant reports including the 2023 NYU Langone face-plus-eye case that achieved vascular patency but no light perception.

Portable operating-room versions now in development could intercept heart-beating donors before circulatory arrest, extending the functional window for whole-eye transplantation. Success metrics will require demonstration of optic-nerve axon regeneration and cortical visual evoked potentials post-transplant, thresholds not yet tested. If achieved, the platform simultaneously supplies a new ex-vivo model for retinal-drug screening that eliminates live-animal requirements.