Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas have developed a method to fabricate microscopic strands of collagen, known as fibrils, in the eye. The fabrication of the fibrils is carried out using microfluidic devices, which consist of transparent plastic containing small channels. Each channel is approximately the size of human hair.
Advances using this novel method will allow researchers to study processes related to why the eye’s natural healing ability sometimes fails, producing scarring and blindness. Their method was published in the journal Biomedical Microdevices.