3-D Retina Organoid Challenge (3-D ROC)

The National Eye Institute (NEI) has its sights set on stimulating researchers to move rapidly toward treatments for retinal diseases. The NEI 3-D Retina Organoid Challenge (3D ROC) was a prize competition to develop a physiologically-competent 3-D retina organoid  model.  A retina organoid is similar to a human retina but it’s grown in a lab from stem cells. Scientists can use retina organoids to study eye diseases and treatments.

Around the world, an estimated 285 million people are visually impaired; of these, 39 million are blind. In many cases, blindness and vision loss are the result of retina-damaging diseases that, if better understood, could be treated or have interventions applied to stop degeneration or provide protection to remaining viable cells. One limitation in furthering retinal research is that eye tissue is not readily available to study disease processes and test new therapies. However, retina biology researchers have developed methods to grow 3-D retina models in vitro from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and human embryonic stem cells (hESC). Current protocols vary in their strengths and limitations, but none can robustly recapitulate the complexity and functionality of the retina.

In this Challenge, NEI sought 3-D human retina organoid prototypes that were physiologically relevant. Such model systems could be transformational for vision research and regenerative medicine. New models could be used for applications such as understanding eye development, studying retinal biology, modeling diseases, identifying and testing treatments, and serving as a tissue source to use in transplantation. In the Challenge, solution(s) should yield reproducible, retina organoid models that represent the complexity, structure, and function of the human retina and are amenable for use in either modeling diseases or high-content screening (see Evaluation Criteria & Point Allocation).

Goals of the challenge were to:

• Deliver a robust 3-D retina organoid system that the broader research community can leverage for their work.
• Galvanize cross-discipline collaborations to encourage transformational advances that will result in  meaningful  therapies.
• Eliminate limitations in current organoid protocols and accelerate development of  3-D retina organoids that  faithfully model  human  tissue.
• Model retinal diseases and test treatments in a system directly relevant  to  humans.

Phase I of 3DROC took place from May 1, 2017 – September 2017.

Phase II was launched in 2018 and culminated in December 2020.

View the Awards & Recognition of Phase I & II of 3-D ROC.