Artificial Retina: The Race To Help the Blind to See

Artificial Retina: The Race to Help the Blind SeeArgonne, Lawrence Livermore,Oak Ridge, Universities Pool Research in Artficial RetinaLight coming into the eye falls upon a photosensitive area at the back of the eye called the retina. The retina does the heavy lifting of converting the light into signals that the brain uses in order to see. The retina in the eye is somewhat analagous to the CCD in a digital camera where the light focused by the lens falls on the pixels of the CCD.

An artificial retina for blind persons would theoretically enable many blind people to see again. Several national labs and universities have formed an association to coordinate their work on the artificial retina. Argonne near Chicago is contributing it's ultrananocrystalline diamond technology to make biocompatible implants. Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge Labs as well as the University of California, USC and North Carolina State are in the partnership.

Project Partners include:DOE National Laboratory Partners Argonne National Laboratory performs packaging and hermetic seal research forprotection of the retinal prosthesis using their R&D 100 award-wining research onultrananocrystalline diamond technology. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory performs conformable electrode developmentby applying photolithographic technology to soft conformable materials. Los Alamos National Laboratory performs imaging and modeling of retinal function. Oak Ridge National Laboratory performs neural electrode materials science research forthe safe injection of electrical charge and long-term stability of the electrodes. Sandia National Laboratories performs microfabrication and materials research for thedevelopment of spring-loaded conformable electrode arrays. Doheny Eye Institute of the University of Southern California .The lead organization for coordinating the team members andperforming clinical testing of the electrode array implants. University of California, Santa Cruz performs bidirectional telemetry and chip design forstimulating the electrode array. North Carolina State University performs electromagnetic and thermal modeling.Second Sight Medical Products Inc. Second Sight is a medical device manufacturer and is the private sector CRADA partnerresponsible for the integration and production of devices under FDA regulations and the eventual commercial distribution to patients.

http://purplemedicalblog.blogspot.com/2004/10/artificial-retina-race-to-help-blind.html