Research status and prospect of hydrogel preparation for artificial cornea

Currently, the dominating treatment of corneal blindness is corneal transplantation, but the shortage of corneal donors has been a major problem in corneal transplantation.Compared with the traditional preparation method of artificial cornea, with the emergence of new materials, new technologies and new commercial activities, hydrogel provides a new possibility for the preparation of artificial cornea.Hydrogel is similar to the equivalent of extracellular matrix, with high biocompatibility, low immunogenicity and other characteristics, so it has been popularized and applied in many industries.As an important material of regenerative medicine, hydrogel has shown a strong application prospect in pharmaceutical research, 3D cell culture, stem cell research, 3D printing bio-ink and other fields.The main materials used for generating hydrogels are hyaluronic acid, gelatin, sodium alginate, etc.A lot of researches on using hydrogels as materials combined with different 3D printing technologies to prepare artificial corneas have been carried out and certain technical and theoretical breakthroughs have been made.This article briefly reviewed the research progress of hydrogel combined with 3D printing in the preparation of artificial cornea.