If the patient has a small amount of healthy limbus left, doctors can still just take a chunk and amplify the cells in the lab before transplanting them back into the eye.
The limbus acts as a barrier between the cornea and the conjunctiva but if it gets damaged, the conjunctiva can start to grow across the cornea, clouding the window and cutting out the light.
That way there's no rejection and far fewer cells are needed… Sounds good, but it requires specialist equipment and the patient still might not have enough healthy limbus left to work with.