Once upon a time there were some unusual Australian sheep with exceptionally sharp eyesight.
The little herd spent three months last year with bionic, artificial eyes surgically implanted behind their retinas.
These sheep were part of a medical study aimed at helping people with some types of blindness see.
Specifically, the sheep test was about seeing whether the device in question, the Phoenix 99, triggers physical intolerance – the bionic eye is said to have been well tolerated by the animals. As a result, an application has now been made to begin testing on human patients.
The project is being carried out by a research team from the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales.
Connected wirelessly to a small camera attached to glasses, the Phoenix 99 works by stimulating a user’s retina. The retina is the layer of light-sensitive cells at the back of the eye that convert light into electrical messages, send them through the optic nerve to the brain, and process them into what we see.
The Phoenix 99 device is able to bypass defective retinal cells and “trigger” those that can still work.
“There were no unexpected reactions from the tissue around the device, and we anticipate that it could stay in place for many years,” says Samuel Eggenberger, a biomedical engineer at the University of Sydney’s School of Biomedical Engineering.
According to the World Health Organization, at least 2.2 billion people around the world suffer from some form of visual impairment, ranging from a mild degree to total blindness. According to the WHO, the financial impact in terms of lost productivity amounts to more than US$25 billion (£19 billion) a year for the global economy.
The use of bionic eye systems to treat blindness is still in its infancy, but as technology advances rapidly, a report expects the sector to be worth $426 million by 2028.
“Advancements in technology have redefined ophthalmology,” says Dr. Diane Hilal-Campo, a New Jersey-based ophthalmologist. “Innovations have not only made diagnosis easier and more accurate, they have changed patient care for the better.”
As an example, she points to a bionic eye that has already been fitted to more than 350 people worldwide – Argus II from the US company Second Sight.
This works just like the Phoenix 99 and was fitted to a patient for the first time in 2011.
Second Sight is now continuing to work on a new product called Orion. This is a brain implant, and the company says its goal is that Orion will be able to treat almost all forms of severe blindness. The project is still in the early clinical phases.
Other bionic eye systems include the Prima device, developed by French company Pixium Vision; and Bionic Eye System from another Australian team, Bionic Vision Technologies.
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dr Hilal-Campo says a current problem is the high cost of the technology, which makes it “accessible to very few people.” The Argus II, for example, costs around $150,000.
She adds that the results are nowhere near perfect as the technology is still in its infancy. “I have no doubt that technology has transformed the lives of patients who were lucky enough to receive these implants,” says Dr. Hilal-Campo. “Currently, however, the technology is limited and only allows the perception of light and shadow and partially shapes.
“[Yet] I’m optimistic that biotech companies will continue to find new ways to bring sight back to people with vision loss for years to come.”
Bhavin Shah, a London-based optometrist, agrees that bionic eyes still have a long way to go. He compares them to digital cameras, which were first invented in 1975 and then took decades to become widely available.
“I believe once the quality of the technology reaches a reasonable standard and approaches something close to what a healthy eye can see, that technology will be much more common,” he says.
“However, there is still a strong urge to treat blindness or prevent it from occurring in the first place.”
Technologies that detect and diagnose visual impairments are likely to have a much larger impact in the short term, he explains. “There are [now] more advanced, user-friendly, reliable and interconnected diagnostic tools,” says Mr. Shah.
“For example, we can quickly take multiple scans of different structures in the eye, examine them at higher resolution, and quickly share them with colleagues. Artificial intelligence is also capable of making decisions [on this]in some cases faster and more reliable than experienced clinicians.”
dr Karen Squier, associate professor and director of low-vision services at Southern College of Optometry in Memphis, Tennessee, believes that some of the most important improvements in eye care are often the smallest.
It points out things like the Apple iPhone’s accessibility features. This includes a voice-over feature that allows the user to get audio descriptions of what’s on the screen – from the battery level, to who’s calling, to what app your finger is on.
dr Squier also highlights Microsoft’s Seeing AI app, which uses a smartphone’s camera to identify people and objects and audibly describe them. It can also scan barcodes and then tell you what the item is, or read handwriting aloud, e.g. B. A letter from a grandchild.
“It’s probably the technology that gets people excited the most because it does a lot of different things and just uses the camera and operating software that’s already built into the phone,” adds Dr. Squier added. “And it’s usually pretty easy for people to learn how to use it.”
In the longer term, she believes that some of the key benefits of eye care technologies will result from integration into disability-friendly public policies and systems. An example could be the use of technology that alerts visually impaired passengers to bus timetables and when a bus is in transit, eliminating potential problems at the bus stop.
That’s not to say that Dr. Squier doesn’t see more sophisticated technologies — including bionic eyes — as technology advances having a significant impact in the future.
“I think even bionic eyes are a step in the right direction,” she says. “But we have to see how it goes.”
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