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Bionic eye promises a brighter future for the visually impaired
11 July 2018
University researchers give new hope to Retinitis Pigmentosa sufferers
The new Phoenix99 bionic eye being developed by engineers at the University of Sydney uses a camera linked to a retinal implant to help people with a debilitating problem with their vision to see again.
Retinitis Pigmentosa is a sentence of darkness: most of the estimated 1.5 million victims worldwide either have or will go irreversibly blind before the age of 40.
But a multidisciplinary research team led by , Professor of at the University of Sydney, has developed a new bionic eye that promises to revolutionise the lives of sufferers.
RP is an incurable genetic disorder that gradually destroys the ability of the retina to convert light into electrical signals that are then transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve.
Professor Suaning and his team have developed a ceramic and platinum retinal implant that mimics the retina, converting signals from an external camera mounted on a pair of spectacles into electrical impulses that stimulate the undamaged nerves behind the retina via a radio frequency coupling implanted behind the ear. Wearers 鈥渟ee鈥� a pattern of spots of light called phosphenes: the spots of light one sees when rubbing one鈥檚 eyes.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like a jumbotron at a sports game,鈥� says Professor Suaning. 鈥淭he individual light spots come together to give a recognisable image.鈥�
The principles behind the system are similar to those used in a cochlear implant, but with the Phoenix99, the University of Sydney team is pushing the boundaries. A cochlear implant typically has less than 25 electrodes: the bionic eye has 98.
鈥淎ustralia has an impressive record in medical technology. The pacemaker was developed here, and we were leaders in cochlear implants. But developing devices like this is expensive, if we had a commercial partner, it would be much easier鈥�
Professor Gregg Suaning
Professor Suaning says that collaboration has been at the heart of his team鈥檚 success. He is a leading biomedical engineer in the聽, but he has been working with his colleagues in the聽聽to develop the software to convert the camera image, and with clinicians from聽, the Save Sight Institute and Westmead Hospital, creating a cluster of expertise that has pushed the technology forward.
He says that the team has hit the limits of current materials technology 鈥� any more electrodes in the array and electrical interference begins to degrade the image 鈥� but he believes that Phoenix99 can be further improved.
鈥淚n principle, we should be able to use a pair of cameras to give an impression of distance, with different colours indicating that objects are nearer or further away,鈥� he says.
And the technology has potentially much wider applications.
鈥淭his could use to give a sense of touch to people with bionic prosthetics. They could feel pressure or heat in the objects they touch. We could help people with facial paralysis; they can鈥檛 feel when their eyes are getting dry they don鈥檛 blink and that can lead to blindness. We could use electrode implants attached to a sensor to tell them when they need to blink.鈥�
Professor Suaning is preparing the Phoenix99 for clinical trials, but he believes the next challenge will be to scale up production. All the implants are currently hand-built in the laboratory across the corridor from his office. 鈥淎ustralia has an impressive record in medical technology. The pacemaker was developed here, and we were leaders in cochlear implants. But developing devices like this is expensive, if we had a commercial partner, it would be much easier,鈥� he says.