News

Bionic Eye More Than Just a Vision
By mivision
June 1, 2008

Last April at Prime Minister Rudd's 2020 talkfest, the most discussed issue was the development of a bionic eye and, as chance would have it, mivision had just run a feature on work being done by a Sydney team on just that topic.

The group - led by ophthalmologist Professor Minas Coroneo of the Prince of Wales and Sydney Eye Hospitals, as well as Dr Vivek Chowdhury - predicts a bionic eye capable of allowing users to see large objects and navigate independently, could be ready and implanted this year.

"That would be a huge breakthrough. While the device will not immediately achieve 2020 vision, as the technology advances, the bionic eye will evolve," Professor Coroneo said.

And it is a huge development considering his team developed its visionary implant for less than AUD$100,000 - a mere drop in the ocean compared to the amounts being spent on bionic eye research in America and the U.K. The overseas technology involves the insertion of vision-stimulating electrodes inside the eyeball on the inner surface of the light-sensing retina.

The Australian system has 30 electrodes, fitted outside the eyeball. Vision is collected by a tiny camera and processed by an iPod-sized device, which sends signals to a plug-like implant fitted behind the ear. The plug is connected to the eye by wires under the skin.

Not long after the ‘bionic eye media frenzy', a story came out of the U.K. claiming that a ‘bionic eye' may hold the key to returning sight to people left blind by a hereditary disease. A team at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital carried out the treatment on the U.K.'s first patients as part of a clinical study into the therapy. The artificial eye, connected to a camera on a pair of glasses, was developed by U.S. firm Second Sight.

Researchers said the technique may be able to restore a basic level of vision, but experts warned it was still early days.

The trial aimed to help people who had been made blind through retinitis pigmentosa, a group of inherited eye diseases that affects the retina. It is not known whether the treatment has helped the two patients - both men in their fifties - to see. Any success is likely to be in the form of light and dark outlines but doctors are optimistic.

Other patients across Europe and the U.S. have also been involved in the trial.

The bionic eye, known as Argus II, works via a camera which transmits a wireless signal to an ultra-thin electronic receiver and electrode panel that are implanted in the eye and attached to the retina. The electrodes stimulate the remaining retinal nerves allowing a signal to be passed along the optic nerve to the brain.

About the same time, the BBC reported this bionic eye story: "U.S. and German scientists have designed a bionic eye to allow blind people to see again.

"It comprises a computer chip that sits in the back of the individual's eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that they wear.

"Images captured by the camera are beamed to the chip, which translates them into impulses that the brain can interpret.

"The work was discussed at a Royal National Institute of the Blind talk. Professor Gislin Dagnelie, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, unveiled details at the conference in London. Human trials will begin within a year, hopes Professor Dagnelie.

"Although the images produced by the artificial eye were far from perfect, they could be clear enough to allow someone who is otherwise blind to recognise faces, he said.

"The breakthrough is likely to benefit patients with the most common cause of blindness, macular degeneration, which affects 500,000 people in the U.K. The implant bypasses the diseased cells in the retina and stimulates the remaining viable cells. Professor Dagnelie said: ‘The retinal implant contains tiny electrodes. If you stimulate a single electrode, the person will see a single dot of light.'

"They have already tested implants containing a handful of electrodes, but the end device will contain 50-100 to give a better overall picture.

" ‘We are hoping this will be enough for the person to be able to make their way through a building, find a door or window and avoid obstacles for example'."