Mark S. Humayun, M.D., Ph.D.
Major advances achieved by researchers in the U.S. Department
of Energy’s (DOE) Artificial Retina Project are beginning to offer
some hope to millions of people blinded by retinal diseases worldwide.
In
a breakthrough operation performed by project leaders at the Doheny
Eye Institute (University of Southern California) in 2002, doctors
threaded an electrode-studded array through an incision into the
eye of a man who had been blind for 50 years and tacked it onto
his damaged retina. Within weeks, the 77-year-old patient could
see patterns of light and dark that allowed him to detect motion
and locate and differentiate simple objects. For the first time
in half a century he could also envision a brighter future for
himself and others whose lives have been devastated by vision
loss due to retinal disease.
The bold plan for the project is
to build on this foundational work by using revolutionary technologies
developed at the DOE national laboratories to create a vastly
improved implantable retinal prosthesis. The ultimate goal is
to restore unaided mobility, reading vision, and facial recognition
to people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular
degeneration (AMD).
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