Scientists To Install Bionic Eyes To 10 Blind People For Sight Restoration

Blindness is an unfortunate impairment that affects millions around the world, but advanced medical technology offers hope. 10 patients who suffer from a form of blindness called Retinitis pigmentosa will be given the chance to have their sight restored via the installation of bionic eyes. This is the next frontier of medical science where science fiction finally becomes scientific fact.

The project will be conducted using the Argus® II Retinal Prosthesis System, which is a tandem of computer relay and camera sensors installed on a pair of glasses. As the system’s website explains, it basically works by having two electronic setups communicate with each other in order to restore vision for the patients.

“A miniature video camera housed in the patient's glasses captures a scene,” the website’s bionic eye section reads. “The video is sent to a small patient-worn computer (i.e., the video processing unit – VPU) where it is processed and transformed into instructions that are sent back to the glasses via a cable. These instructions are transmitted wirelessly to an antenna in the retinal implant. The signals are then sent to the electrode array, which emits small pulses of electricity. These pulses bypass the damaged photoreceptors and stimulate the retina's remaining cells, which transmit the visual information along the optic nerve to the brain, creating the perception of patterns of light.”

Before the Argus II program, patients who suffered from Retinitis pigmentosa had no hope for treatment, which effectively doomed them to a state of blindness forever, Futurism reports. Treatment will be delivered in groups, with five of the patients going to Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and the other five going to Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Their treatment will start in 2017 and if proven successful, the treatment could be made available to the estimated 16,000 patients who suffer from the impairment in the UK alone. Global delivery will likely take some time as well.