A virtual cornea framework that simulates how the eye’s surface heals after injury

What is it about?

In this paper, we introduce V‑Cornea, a “virtual tissue” computer simulation of the corneal epithelium. Instead of treating the cornea as one uniform layer, the model represents many individual cells and simple, biologically motivated rules for how they grow, move, change type, and are shed. It also represents key signals from the tear film (including growth signals that help drive healing), so that the model can connect what happens to individual cells with what happens at the tissue level. We then used V‑Cornea to simulate normal corneal maintenance over long periods, and to test how the tissue responds after different kinds of injury. The model reproduces realistic patterns: it can build and maintain the layered surface structure, and it can capture the difference between injuries that heal cleanly in a few days versus deeper injuries that lead to long-lasting instability.

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Photo by Dimitar Krastev on Unsplash

Photo by Dimitar Krastev on Unsplash

Why is it important?

V‑Cornea matters because it offers a practical way to explore healing over time in a controlled, repeatable environment without needing to run every scenario in animals or in difficult-to-maintain experiments. In the model, shallow injuries repair quickly (on the order of days), while injuries that disrupt the layer cells anchor to can lead to incomplete recovery and repeated breakdown patterns that resemble clinically observed recurrent problems. That ability to distinguish “heals and stabilizes” from “heals but remains fragile” is exactly what many decision-makers need in toxicology, product safety, and treatment planning. Because the model is modular and designed to be extended, it can also become a platform for “what-if” questions that are hard to test directly: How might changing tear-film signals alter healing speed? Which injury depths are most likely to cause persistent defects? Which therapies might shorten recovery or prevent repeated erosions? Over time, models like this can help connect lab measurements to human outcomes and support more human-relevant, animal-sparing approaches.

Perspectives