In one of the many miraculous discoveries
attributable to medical research, Dr. Ivan R. Schwab '69, '73
M.D., has revolutionized the treatment of eye disease by developing
a process to grow replacement corneal tissue.
Schwab's research in bioengineering at the University of California—Davis
School of Medicine has improved the eyesight of patients whose
eye disease had been deemed untreatable.
One patient, James Beebe, has given up his plans to get a seeing-eye
dog and cane. "It is wonderful," Beebe says. "I
can see again."
When he was growing up in Kingwood, W.Va., Ivan Schwab knew about
the miracles worked by medical science. His parents, J. Wayne
and Helen Schwab, ran a drugstore. Townsfolk came into the store
with a doctor's prescription, and the medicines they carried
home from the Schwabs' pharmacy restored their health, or made
their ailments easier to bear.
Given their background, it should not be surprising that Ivan
and his brothers, Larry and Lowell, all matriculated at WVU and
went on to receive medical education at the WVU School of Medicine.
Ivan and Larry, '62, '66 M.D., received their M.D. degrees from
WVU, while Lowell used his two years of WVU medical training
to earn an M.D. from the Medical College of Virginia.
"There have been others in my education process," Ivan
Schwab says, "but WVU has been the base. Without WVU, I
would be working part-time jobs or unemployed. I will be forever
grateful for the education."
For a while after receiving his M.D., Schwab taught ophthalmology
at the WVU School of Medicine. He also travelled to Africa to
assist his brother Larry in medical practice there.
Now living in Fair Oaks, California, Schwab is a professor of
clinical ophthalmology at the UC—Davis School of Medicine.
He specializes in diseases and disorders of the cornea and external
eye.
For ten years, Schwab and his research partner, Dr. Rivkah Isseroff,
a dermatologist, worked on finding a viable way to grow "wet"
tissue in the laboratory. Previously, only "dry" tissue
such as skin and cartilage had been laboratory-grown.
Schwab, Isseroff, and their research team developed a process
whereby corneal stem cells are harvested from a healthy eye,
then the tissue is separated and grown in lab dishes. A fragile
film of the new corneal cells, along with the surviving stem
cells, is transferred to a matrix of sterile amniotic membrane,
where the corneal cells multiply and form a sturdy composite
tissue.
The resulting composite tissue has been bioengineered: it combines
the elasticity and resilience of the amniotic membrane with the
biological properties of the corneal tissue. The composite tissue
is then stitched onto the patient's eye, replacing diseased corneal
tissue.
The importance of Schwab's discovery is very great. The techniques
he and his colleagues developed may also make possible wet-tissue
transplantation in the esophagus, stomach, intestine, and colon—and
perhaps in the lung, spleen, and kidney.
Regarding the potential effect of his work on treating disease,
Schwab says, "We are now where the Wright brothers were
with aviation."
The international medical community and the media have taken
notice. Since the research was made public last summer, it has
been reported on every major U.S. television network and on the
front pages of newspapers including the London Times and
the Washington Post. News of the breakthrough has also appeared
in Scientific American, Discovery, Time, and U.S. News
and World Report magazines.