A QINGDAO biological engineering company has said its artificial cornea is expected to be used for clinical tests at the end of this year.

    The artificial corna, which is mainly made from deep-sea fish-skin collagen, is developed by Qingdao Chunghao Tissue Engineering Co. Ltd. and Ocean University of China.

    The company’s technicians have been transplanting the artificial corna to dogs for a safety test.

    “According to national regulations, the product has to be tried on two different species before being used for clinical tests,” said Wang Baoquan, the president of the company.

    The first animal test was conducted last August.

    “Our company has recently been approved by the science and technology administration in Shandong Province to become the only qualified institution in the province to conduct transplant operations on monkeys,” said Wang.

    Wang’s company has spent more than 10 million yuan on equipment purchase and will build a public experiment platform in the tissue engineering field in cooperation with Qingdao.

    Wang said the production of the artificial corneas will benefit millions of blind patients, achieving a yearly output of 3 billion yuan.

    (Li Hao, Zhao Di)