Tag Archives: retinitis pigmentosa

World’s first liquid retina prosthesis

The new artificial liquid retina is biomimetic and consists of an aqueous component in which photoactive polymeric nanoparticles (whose size is of 350 nanometres, thus about 1/100 of the diameter of a hair) are suspended, going to replace the damaged photoreceptors. Credit: IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia [image downloaded from https://www.medgadget.com/2020/06/injectable-liquid-prosthesis-to-treat-retinal-diseases-developed.html]

A June 29, 2020 news item on Nanowerk announces the world’s first liquid retina prosthesis,

Researchers at IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) has led to the revolutionary development of an artificial liquid retinal prosthesis to counteract the effects of diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration that cause the progressive degeneration of photoreceptors of the retina, resulting in blindness.

The multidisciplinary team is composed by researchers from the IIT’s Center for Synaptic Neuroscience and Technology in Genoa coordinated by Fabio Benfenati and a team from the IIT’s Center for Nano Science and Technology in Milan coordinated by Guglielmo Lanzani, and it also involves the IRCCS Ospedale Sacrocuore Don Calabria in Negrar (Verona) with the team lead by Grazia Pertile, the IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino in Genoa and the CNR in Bologna. The research has been supported by Fondazione 13 Marzo Onlus, Fondazione Ra.Mo., Rare Partners srl and Fondazione Cariplo.

The study represents the state of the art in retinal prosthetics and is an evolution of the planar artificial retinal model developed by the same team in 2017 and based on organic semiconductor materials (Nature Materials 2017, 16: 681-689).

A June 30, 2020 IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) press release (also on EurekAlert but published June 29, 2020) provides more detail,

The “second generation” artificial retina is biomimetic, offers high spatial resolution and consists of an aqueous component in which photoactive polymeric nanoparticles (whose size is of 350 nanometres, thus about 1/100 of the diameter of a hair) are suspended, going to replace the damaged photoreceptors.

The experimental results show that the natural light stimulation of nanoparticles, in fact, causes the activation of retinal neurons spared from degeneration, thus mimicking the functioning of photoreceptors in healthy subjects.

Compared to other existing approaches, the new liquid nature of the prosthesis ensures fast and less traumatic surgery that consist of microinjections of nanoparticles directly under the retina, where they remain trapped and replace the degenerated photoreceptors; this method also ensures an increased effectiveness.

The data collected show also that the innovative experimental technique represents a valid alternative to the methods used to date to restore the photoreceptive capacity of retinal neurons while preserving their spatial resolution, laying a solid foundation for future clinical trials in humans. Moreover, the development of these photosensitive nanomaterials opens the way to new future applications in neuroscience and medicine.

“Our experimental results highlight the potential relevance of nanomaterials in the development of second-generation retinal prostheses to treat degenerative retinal blindness, and represents a major step forward” Fabio Benfenati commented. “The creation of a liquid artificial retinal implant has great potential to ensure a wide-field vision and high-resolution vision. Enclosing the photoactive polymers in particles that are smaller than the photoreceptors, increases the active surface of interaction with the retinal neurons, allows to easily cover the entire retinal surface and to scale the photoactivation at the level of a single photoreceptor.”

“In this research we have applied nanotechnology to medicine” concludes Guglielmo Lanzani. “In particular in our labs we have realized polymer nanoparticles that behave like tiny photovoltaic cells, based on carbon and hydrogen, fundamental components of the biochemistry of life. Once injected into the retina, these nanoparticles form small aggregates the size of which is comparable to that of neurons, that effectively behave like photoreceptors.”

“The surgical procedure for the subretinal injection of photoactive nanoparticles is minimally invasive and potentially replicable over time, unlike planar retinal prostheses” adds Grazia Pertile, Director at Operating Unit of Ophthalmology at IRCCS Ospedale Sacro Cuore Don Calabria. “At the same time maintaining the advantages of polymeric prosthesis, which is naturally sensitive to the light entering the eye and does not require glasses, cameras or external energy sources.”

The research study is based on preclinical models and further experimentations will be fundamental to make the technique a clinical treatment for diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Subretinally injected semiconducting polymer nanoparticles rescue vision in a rat model of retinal dystrophy by José Fernando Maya-Vetencourt, Giovanni Manfredi, Maurizio Mete, Elisabetta Colombo, Mattia Bramini, Stefano Di Marco, Dmytro Shmal, Giulia Mantero, Michele Dipalo, Anna Rocchi, Mattia L. DiFrancesco, Ermanno D. Papaleo, Angela Russo, Jonathan Barsotti, Cyril Eleftheriou, Francesca Di Maria, Vanessa Cossu, Fabio Piazza, Laura Emionite, Flavia Ticconi, Cecilia Marini, Gianmario Sambuceti, Grazia Pertile, Guglielmo Lanzani & Fabio Benfenati. Nature Nanotechnology (2020) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-020-0696-3 Published: 29 June 2020

This paper is behind a paywall.

A new class of artificial retina

If I read the news release rightly (keep scrolling), this particular artificial retina does not require a device outside the body (e.g. specially developed eyeglasses) to capture an image to be transmitted to the implant. This new artificial retina captures the image directly.

The announcement of a new artificial retina is made in a March 13, 2017 news item on Nanowerk (Note: A link has been removed),

A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego and La Jolla-based startup Nanovision Biosciences Inc. have developed the nanotechnology and wireless electronics for a new type of retinal prosthesis that brings research a step closer to restoring the ability of neurons in the retina to respond to light. The researchers demonstrated this response to light in a rat retina interfacing with a prototype of the device in vitro.

They detail their work in a recent issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering (“Towards high-resolution retinal prostheses with direct optical addressing and inductive telemetry”). The technology could help tens of millions of people worldwide suffering from neurodegenerative diseases that affect eyesight, including macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa and loss of vision due to diabetes

Caption: These are primary cortical neurons cultured on the surface of an array of optoelectronic nanowires. Here a neuron is pulling the nanowires, indicating the the cell is doing well on this material. Credit: UC San Diego

A March 13, 2017 University of California at San Diego (UCSD) news release (also on EurekAlert) by Ioana Patringenaru, which originated the news item, details the new approach,

Despite tremendous advances in the development of retinal prostheses over the past two decades, the performance of devices currently on the market to help the blind regain functional vision is still severely limited–well under the acuity threshold of 20/200 that defines legal blindness.

“We want to create a new class of devices with drastically improved capabilities to help people with impaired vision,” said Gabriel A. Silva, one of the senior authors of the work and professor in bioengineering and ophthalmology at UC San Diego. Silva also is one of the original founders of Nanovision.

The new prosthesis relies on two groundbreaking technologies. One consists of arrays of silicon nanowires that simultaneously sense light and electrically stimulate the retina accordingly. The nanowires give the prosthesis higher resolution than anything achieved by other devices–closer to the dense spacing of photoreceptors in the human retina. The other breakthrough is a wireless device that can transmit power and data to the nanowires over the same wireless link at record speed and energy efficiency.

One of the main differences between the researchers’ prototype and existing retinal prostheses is that the new system does not require a vision sensor outside of the eye [emphasis mine] to capture a visual scene and then transform it into alternating signals to sequentially stimulate retinal neurons. Instead, the silicon nanowires mimic the retina’s light-sensing cones and rods to directly stimulate retinal cells. Nanowires are bundled into a grid of electrodes, directly activated by light and powered by a single wireless electrical signal. This direct and local translation of incident light into electrical stimulation makes for a much simpler–and scalable–architecture for the prosthesis.

The power provided to the nanowires from the single wireless electrical signal gives the light-activated electrodes their high sensitivity while also controlling the timing of stimulation.

“To restore functional vision, it is critical that the neural interface matches the resolution and sensitivity of the human retina,” said Gert Cauwenberghs, a professor of bioengineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and the paper’s senior author.

Wireless telemetry system

Power is delivered wirelessly, from outside the body to the implant, through an inductive powering telemetry system developed by a team led by Cauwenberghs.

The device is highly energy efficient because it minimizes energy losses in wireless power and data transmission and in the stimulation process, recycling electrostatic energy circulating within the inductive resonant tank, and between capacitance on the electrodes and the resonant tank. Up to 90 percent of the energy transmitted is actually delivered and used for stimulation, which means less RF wireless power emitting radiation in the transmission, and less heating of the surrounding tissue from dissipated power.

The telemetry system is capable of transmitting both power and data over a single pair of inductive coils, one emitting from outside the body, and another on the receiving side in the eye. The link can send and receive one bit of data for every two cycles of the 13.56 megahertz RF signal; other two-coil systems need at least 5 cycles for every bit transmitted.

Proof-of-concept test

For proof-of-concept, the researchers inserted the wirelessly powered nanowire array beneath a transgenic rat retina with rhodopsin P23H knock-in retinal degeneration. The degenerated retina interfaced in vitro with a microelectrode array for recording extracellular neural action potentials (electrical “spikes” from neural activity).

The horizontal and bipolar neurons fired action potentials preferentially when the prosthesis was exposed to a combination of light and electrical potential–and were silent when either light or electrical bias was absent, confirming the light-activated and voltage-controlled responsivity of the nanowire array.

The wireless nanowire array device is the result of a collaboration between a multidisciplinary team led by Cauwenberghs, Silva and William R. Freeman, director of the Jacobs Retina Center at UC San Diego, UC San Diego electrical engineering professor Yu-Hwa Lo and Nanovision Biosciences.

A path to clinical translation

Freeman, Silva and Scott Thorogood, have co-founded La Jolla-based Nanovision Biosciences, a partner in this study, to further develop and translate the technology into clinical use, with the goal of restoring functional vision in patients with severe retinal degeneration. Animal tests with the device are in progress, with clinical trials following.

“We have made rapid progress with the development of the world’s first nanoengineered retinal prosthesis as a result of the unique partnership we have developed with the team at UC San Diego,” said Thorogood, who is the CEO of Nanovision Biosciences.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Towards high-resolution retinal prostheses with direct optical addressing and inductive telemetry by Sohmyung Ha, Massoud L Khraiche, Abraham Akinin, Yi Jing, Samir Damle, Yanjin Kuang, Sue Bauchner, Yu-Hwa Lo, William R Freeman, Gabriel A Silva.Journal of Neural Engineering, Volume 13, Number 5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2560/13/5/056008

Published 16 August 2016 • © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd

I’m not sure why they waited so long to make the announcement but, in any event, this paper is behind a paywall.

Better neuroprostheses for brain diseases and mental illneses

I don’t often get news releases from Sweden but I do on occasion and, sometimes, they even come in their original Swedish versions. In this case, Lund University sent me an English language version about their latest work making brain implants (neural prostheses) safer and effective. From a Sept. 29, 2015 Lund University news release (also on EurekAlert),

Neurons thrive and grow in a new type of nanowire material developed by researchers in Nanophysics and Ophthalmology at Lund University in Sweden. In time, the results might improve both neural and retinal implants, and reduce the risk of them losing their effectiveness over time, which is currently a problem

By implanting electrodes in the brain tissue one can stimulate or capture signals from different areas of the brain. These types of brain implants, or neuro-prostheses as they are sometimes called, are used to treat Parkinson’s disease and other neurological diseases.

They are currently being tested in other areas, such as depression, severe cases of autism, obsessive-compulsive disorders and paralysis. Another research track is to determine whether retinal implants are able to replace light-sensitive cells that die in cases of Retinitis Pigmentosa and other eye diseases.

However, there are severe drawbacks associated with today’s implants. One problem is that the body interprets the implants as foreign objects, resulting in an encapsulation of the electrode, which in turn leads to loss of signal.

One of the researchers explains the approach adopted by the research team (from the news release),

“Our nanowire structure prevents the cells that usually encapsulate the electrodes – glial cells – from doing so”, says Christelle Prinz, researcher in Nanophysics at Lund University in Sweden, who developed this technique together with Maria Thereza Perez, a researcher in Ophthalmology.

“I was very pleasantly surprised by these results. In previous in-vitro experiments, the glial cells usually attach strongly to the electrodes”, she says.

To avoid this, the researchers have developed a small substrate where regions of super thin nanowires are combined with flat regions. While neurons grow and extend processes on the nanowires, the glial cells primarily occupy the flat regions in between.

“The different types of cells continue to interact. This is necessary for the neurons to survive because the glial cells provide them with important molecules.”

So far, tests have only been done with cultured cells (in vitro) but hopefully they will soon be able to continue with experiments in vivo.

The substrate is made from the semiconductor material gallium phosphide where each outgrowing nanowire has a diameter of only 80 nanometres (billionths of a metre).

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Support of Neuronal Growth Over Glial Growth and Guidance of Optic Nerve Axons by Vertical Nanowire Arrays by Gaëlle Piret, Maria-Thereza Perez, and Christelle N. Prinz. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2015, 7 (34), pp 18944–18948 DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b03798 Publication Date (Web): August 11, 2015

Copyright © 2015 American Chemical Society

This paper appears to be open access as I was able to link to the PDF version.

Clinical trial for bionic eye (artificial retinal implant) shows encouraging results (safety and efficacy)

The Argus II artificial retina was first mentioned here in a Feb. 15, 2013 posting (scroll down about 50% of the way) when it received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commercial approval. In retrospect that seems puzzling since the results of a three-year clinical trial have just been reported in a June 23, 2015 news item on ScienceDaily (Note: There was one piece of information about the approval which didn’t make its way into the information disseminated in 2013),

The three-year clinical trial results of the retinal implant popularly known as the “bionic eye,” have proven the long-term efficacy, safety and reliability of the device that restores vision in those blinded by a rare, degenerative eye disease. The findings show that the Argus II significantly improves visual function and quality of life for people blinded by retinitis pigmentosa. They are being published online in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

A June 23, 2015 American Academy of Ophthalmology news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the condition the Argus II is designed for and that crucial bit of FDA information,

Retinitis pigmentosa is an incurable disease that affects about 1 in 4,000 Americans and causes slow vision loss that eventually leads to blindness.[1] The Argus II system was designed to help provide patients who have lost their sight due to the disease with some useful vision. Through the device, patients with retinitis pigmentosa are able to see patterns of light that the brain learns to interpret as an image. The system uses a miniature video camera stored in the patient’s glasses to send visual information to a small computerized video processing unit which can be stored in a pocket. This computer turns the image to electronic signals that are sent wirelessly to an electronic device implanted on the retina, the layer of light-sensing cells lining the back of the eye.

The Argus II received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval as a Humanitarian Use Device (HUD) in 2013, which is an approval specifically for devices intended to benefit small populations and/or rare conditions. [emphasis mine]

I don’t recall seeing “Humanitarian Use Device (HUD)” in the 2013 materials which focused on the FDA’s commercial use approval. I gather from this experience that commercial use doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve finished with clinical trials and are ready to start selling the product. In any event, I will try to take a closer look at the actual approvals the next time, assuming I can make sense of the language.

After all the talk about it, here’s what the device looks like,

 Caption: Figure A, The implanted portions of the Argus II System. Figure B, The external components of the Argus II System. Images in real time are captured by camera mounted on the glasses. The video processing unit down-samples and processes the image, converting it to stimulation patterns. Data and power are sent via radiofrequency link form the transmitter antenna on the glasses to the receiver antenna around the eye. A removable, rechargeable battery powers the system. Credit: Photo courtesy of Second Sight Medical Products, Inc.


Caption: Figure A, The implanted portions of the Argus II System. Figure B, The external components of the Argus II System. Images in real time are captured by camera mounted on the glasses. The video processing unit down-samples and processes the image, converting it to stimulation patterns. Data and power are sent via radiofrequency link form the transmitter antenna on the glasses to the receiver antenna around the eye. A removable, rechargeable battery powers the system.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Second Sight Medical Products, Inc.

The news release offers more details about the recently completed clinical trial,

To further evaluate the safety, reliability and benefit of the device, a clinical trial of 30 people, aged 28 to 77, was conducted in the United States and Europe. All of the study participants had little or no light perception in both eyes. The researchers conducted visual function tests using both a computer screen and real-world conditions, including finding and touching a door and identifying and following a line on the ground. A Functional Low-vision Observer Rated Assessment (FLORA) was also performed by independent visual rehabilitation experts at the request of the FDA to assess the impact of the Argus II system on the subjects’ everyday lives, including extensive interviews and tasks performed around the home.

The visual function results indicated that up to 89 percent of the subjects performed significantly better with the device. The FLORA found that among the subjects, 80 percent received benefit from the system when considering both functional vision and patient-reported quality of life, and no subjects were affected negatively.

After one year, two-thirds of the subjects had not experienced device- or surgery-related serious adverse events. After three years, there were no device failures. Throughout the three years, 11 subjects experienced serious adverse events, most of which occurred soon after implantation and were successfully treated. One of these treatments, however, was to remove the device due to recurring erosion after the suture tab on the device became damaged.

“This study shows that the Argus II system is a viable treatment option for people profoundly blind due to retinitis pigmentosa – one that can make a meaningful difference in their lives and provides a benefit that can last over time,” said Allen C. Ho, M.D., lead author of the study and director of the clinical retina research unit at Wills Eye Hospital. “I look forward to future studies with this technology which may make possible expansion of the intended use of the device, including treatment for other diseases and eye injuries.”

Here’s a link to a PDF of and a citation for the paper,

Long-Term Results from an Epiretinal Prosthesis to Restore Sight to the Blind by Allen C. Ho,Mark S. Humayun, Jessy D. Dorn, Lyndon da Cruz, Gislin Dagnelie,James Handa, Pierre-Olivier Barale, José-Alain Sahel, Paulo E. Stanga, Farhad Hafezi, Avinoam B. Safran, Joel Salzmann, Arturo Santos, David Birch, Rand Spencer, Artur V. Cideciyan, Eugene de Juan, Jacque L. Duncan, Dean Eliott, Amani Fawzi, Lisa C. Olmos de Koo, Gary C. Brown, Julia A. Haller, Carl D. Regillo, Lucian V. Del Priore, Aries Arditi, Duane R. Geruschat, Robert J. Greenberg. Opthamology, June 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2015.04.032

This paper is open access.

‘Touching’ infrared light, if you’re a rat followed by announcement of US FDA approval of first commercial artificial retina (bionic eye)

Researcher Miguel Nicolelis and his colleagues at Duke University have implanted a neuroprosthetic device in the portion of a rat’s brain related to touch that allows the rats to see infrared light. From the Feb. 12, 2013 news release on EurekAlert,

Researchers have given rats the ability to “touch” infrared light, normally invisible to them, by fitting them with an infrared detector wired to microscopic electrodes implanted in the part of the mammalian brain that processes tactile information. The achievement represents the first time a brain-machine interface has augmented a sense in adult animals, said Duke University neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis, who led the research team.

The experiment also demonstrated for the first time that a novel sensory input could be processed by a cortical region specialized in another sense without “hijacking” the function of this brain area said Nicolelis. This discovery suggests, for example, that a person whose visual cortex was damaged could regain sight through a neuroprosthesis implanted in another cortical region, he said.

Although the initial experiments tested only whether rats could detect infrared light, there seems no reason that these animals in the future could not be given full-fledged infrared vision, said Nicolelis. For that matter, cortical neuroprostheses could be developed to give animals or humans the ability to see in any region of the electromagnetic spectrum, or even magnetic fields. “We could create devices sensitive to any physical energy,” he said. “It could be magnetic fields, radio waves, or ultrasound. We chose infrared initially because it didn’t interfere with our electrophysiological recordings.”

Interestingly, the research was supported by the US National Institute of Mental Health (as per the news release).

The researchers have more to say about what they’re doing,

“The philosophy of the field of brain-machine interfaces has until now been to attempt to restore a motor function lost to lesion or damage of the central nervous system,” said Thomson, [Eric Thomson] first author of the study. “This is the first paper in which a neuroprosthetic device was used to augment function—literally enabling a normal animal to acquire a sixth sense.”

Here’s how they conducted the research,

The mammalian retina is blind to infrared light, and mammals cannot detect any heat generated by the weak infrared light used in the studies. In their experiments, the researchers used a test chamber that contained three light sources that could be switched on randomly. Using visible LED lights, they first taught each rat to choose the active light source by poking its nose into an attached port to receive a reward of a sip of water.

After training the rats, the researchers implanted in their brains an array of stimulating microelectrodes, each roughly a tenth the diameter of a human hair. The microelectrodes were implanted in the cortical region that processes touch information from the animals’ facial whiskers.

Attached to the microelectrodes was an infrared detector affixed to the animals’ foreheads. The system was programmed so that orientation toward an infrared light would trigger an electrical signal to the brain. The signal pulses increased in frequency with the intensity and proximity of the light.

The researchers returned the animals to the test chamber, gradually replacing the visible lights with infrared lights. At first in infrared trials, when a light was switched on the animals would tend to poke randomly at the reward ports and scratch at their faces, said Nicolelis. This indicated that they were initially interpreting the brain signals as touch. However, over about a month, the animals learned to associate the brain signal with the infrared source. They began to actively “forage” for the signal, sweeping their heads back and forth to guide themselves to the active light source. Ultimately, they achieved a near-perfect score in tracking and identifying the correct location of the infrared light source.

To ensure that the animals were really using the infrared detector and not their eyes to sense the infrared light, the researchers conducted trials in which the light switched on, but the detector sent no signal to the brain. In these trials, the rats did not react to the infrared light.

Their finding could have an impact on notions of mammalian brain plasticity,

A key finding, said Nicolelis, was that enlisting the touch cortex for light detection did not reduce its ability to process touch signals. “When we recorded signals from the touch cortex of these animals, we found that although the cells had begun responding to infrared light, they continued to respond to whisker touch. It was almost like the cortex was dividing itself evenly so that the neurons could process both types of information.

This finding of brain plasticity is in contrast with the “optogenetic” approach to brain stimulation, which holds that a particular neuronal cell type should be stimulated to generate a desired neurological function. Rather, said Nicolelis, the experiments demonstrate that a broad electrical stimulation, which recruits many distinct cell types, can drive a cortical region to adapt to a new source of sensory input.

All of this work is part of Nicolelis’ larger project ‘Walk Again’ which is mentioned in my March 16, 2012 posting and includes a reference to some ethical issues raised by the work. Briefly, Nicolelis and an international team of collaborators are developing a brain-machine interface that will enable full mobility for people who are severely paralyzed. From the news release,

The Walk Again Project has recently received a $20 million grant from FINEP, a Brazilian research funding agency to allow the development of the first brain-controlled whole body exoskeleton aimed at restoring mobility in severely paralyzed patients. A first demonstration of this technology is expected to happen in the opening game of the 2014 Soccer World Cup in Brazil.

Expanding sensory abilities could also enable a new type of feedback loop to improve the speed and accuracy of such exoskeletons, said Nicolelis. For example, while researchers are now seeking to use tactile feedback to allow patients to feel the movements produced by such “robotic vests,” the feedback could also be in the form of a radio signal or infrared light that would give the person information on the exoskeleton limb’s position and encounter with objects.

There’s more information including videos about the work with infrared light and rats at the Nicolelis Lab website.  Here’s a citation for and link to the team’s research paper,

Perceiving invisible light through a somatosensory cortical prosthesis by Eric E. Thomson, Rafael Carra, & Miguel A.L. Nicolelis. Nature Communications Published 12 Feb 2013 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2497

Meanwhile, the US Food and Drug Administraton (FDA) has approved the first commercial artificial retina, from the Feb. 14, 2013 news release,

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted market approval to an artificial retina technology today, the first bionic eye to be approved for patients in the United States. The prosthetic technology was developed in part with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The device, called the Argus® II Retinal Prosthesis System, transmits images from a small, eye-glass-mounted camera wirelessly to a microelectrode array implanted on a patient’s damaged retina. The array sends electrical signals via the optic nerve, and the brain interprets a visual image.

The FDA approval currently applies to individuals who have lost sight as a result of severe to profound retinitis pigmentosa (RP), an ailment that affects one in every 4,000 Americans. The implant allows some individuals with RP, who are completely blind, to locate objects, detect movement, improve orientation and mobility skills and discern shapes such as large letters.

The Argus II is manufactured by, and will be distributed by, Second Sight Medical Products of Sylmar, Calif., which is part of the team of scientists and engineers from the university, federal and private sectors who spent nearly two decades developing the system with public and private investment.

Scientists are often compelled to do research in an area inspired by family,

“Seeing my grandmother go blind motivated me to pursue ophthalmology and biomedical engineering to develop a treatment for patients for whom there was no foreseeable cure,” says the technology’s co-developer, Mark Humayun, associate director of research at the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California and director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems (BMES). …”

There’s also been considerable government investment,

The effort by Humayun and his colleagues has received early and continuing support from NSF, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, with grants totaling more than $100 million. The private sector’s support nearly matched that of the federal government.

“The retinal implant exemplifies how NSF grants for high-risk, fundamental research can directly result in ground-breaking technologies decades later,” said Acting NSF Assistant Director for Engineering Kesh Narayanan. “In collaboration with the Second Sight team and the courageous patients who volunteered to have experimental surgery to implant the first-generation devices, the researchers of NSF’s Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems Engineering Research Center are developing technologies that may ultimately have as profound an impact on blindness as the cochlear implant has had for hearing loss.”

Leaving aside controversies about cochlear implants and the possibility of such controversies with artificial retinas (bionic eyes), it’s interesting to note that this device is dependent on an external camera,

The researchers’ efforts have bridged cellular biology–necessary for understanding how to stimulate the retinal ganglion cells without permanent damage–with microelectronics, which led to the miniaturized, low-power integrated chip for performing signal conversion, conditioning and stimulation functions. The hardware was paired with software processing and tuning algorithms that convert visual imagery to stimulation signals, and the entire system had to be incorporated within hermetically sealed packaging that allowed the electronics to operate in the vitreous fluid of the eye indefinitely. Finally, the research team had to develop new surgical techniques in order to integrate the device with the body, ensuring accurate placement of the stimulation electrodes on the retina.

“The artificial retina is a great engineering challenge under the interdisciplinary constraint of biology, enabling technology, regulatory compliance, as well as sophisticated design science,” adds Liu.  [Wentai Liu of the University of California, Los Angeles] “The artificial retina provides an interface between biotic and abiotic systems. Its unique design characteristics rely on system-level optimization, rather than the more common practice of component optimization, to achieve miniaturization and integration. Using the most advanced semiconductor technology, the engine for the artificial retina is a ‘system on a chip’ of mixed voltages and mixed analog-digital design, which provides self-contained power and data management and other functionality. This design for the artificial retina facilitates both surgical procedures and regulatory compliance.”

The Argus II design consists of an external video camera system matched to the implanted retinal stimulator, which contains a microelectrode array that spans 20 degrees of visual field. [emphasis mine] …

“The external camera system-built into a pair of glasses-streams video to a belt-worn computer, which converts the video into stimulus commands for the implant,” says Weiland [USC researcher Jim Weiland], “The belt-worn computer encodes the commands into a wireless signal that is transmitted to the implant, which has the necessary electronics to receive and decode both wireless power and data. Based on those data, the implant stimulates the retina with small electrical pulses. The electronics are hermetically packaged and the electrical stimulus is delivered to the retina via a microelectrode array.”

You can see some footage of people using artificial retinas in the context of Grégoire Cosendai’s TEDx Vienna presentation. As I noted in my Aug. 18, 2011 posting where this talk and developments in human enhancement are mentioned, the relevant material can be seen at approximately 13 mins., 25 secs. in Cosendai’s talk.

Second Sight Medical Devices can be found here.

Everything becomes part machine

Machine/flesh. That’s what I’ve taken to calling this process of integrating machinery into our and, as I newly realized, other animals’ flesh. My new realization was courtesy of a television ad for Absolut Greyhound Vodka. First, here’s the very, very long (3 mins. 39 secs.) ad/music video version,

I gather the dogs are mostly or, possibly, all animation. Still, the robotic dogs are very thought-provoking.  It’s kind of fascinating to me that I found a very unusual, futuristic, and thought-provoking idea embedded in advertising so I dug around online to find a March 2012 article by Rae Ann Fera, about the ad campaign, written for the Fast (Company} Co-Create website,

In the real world, music and cocktails go hand in hand. In an Absolut world, music and cocktails come with racing robotic greyhounds remotely controlled by a trio of DJs, spurred on by a cast of characters that make Lady Gaga look casual.

“Greyhound”–which is the title of the drink, the video, and the actual music track–is a three-minute visual feast created by TBWA\Chiat\Day that sees three groups of couture-sporting racing enthusiasts converge on the Bonneville Salt Flats to watch some robotic greyhounds speed across the parched plains, all while sipping light pink Absolut Greyhounds. While the fabulous people in the desert give each other the “my team’s going to win” stink-eye, the three members of Swedish House Mafia are off in a desolate bunker remotely controlling the robodogs to a photo-finish while ensconced in holographic orbs. …

Given that “Greyhound” is part music video, part ad, it will be distributed across a number of channels. “When it come to our target, music is their number one passion point and they live in the digital space so the campaign is really going to primarily TV and digital,” says Absolut’s Kouchnir [Maxime Kouchnir, Vice President, Vodkas, Pernod Ricard USA].

The advertisers, of course, are trying to sell vodka by digitally creating a greyhound that’s part robot/part flesh and then setting the stage for this race with music, fashion, cocktails, and an open-ended result. But, if one thinks of advertising as a reflection of culture, then these animated robot/flesh greyhounds suggest that something is percolating in the zeitgeist.

I have other examples on this blog  but here are a few recent  nonadvertising items I’ve come across that support my thesis. First, I found an April 27, 2012 article (MIT Media Lab Hosts The Future) by Neal Ungerleider for Fast Company, from the article,

This week, MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] Media Lab researchers and minds from around the world got together to discuss artificial implantable memories, computers that understand emotion… and Microsoft-funded robotic teddy bears. Will the next Guitar Hero soon be discovered?

….

Then there are the scientists who will be able to plant artificial memories in your head. Ted Berger of the University of Southern California is developing prosthetic brain implants that mimic the mind. Apart from turning recipients into cyborgs, the brain prostheses actually create fake memories, science fiction movie style: In experiments, researchers successfully turned long-term memories on and off in lab rats. Berger hopes in the future, once primate testing is complete, to create brain implants for Alzheimer’s and stroke patients to help restore function.

While erasing and/or creating memories may seem a bit distant from our current experience, the BBC May 3, 2012 news article by Fergus Walsh, describes another machine/flesh project at the human clinical trials stage. Retinal implants have placed in two British men,

The two patients, Chris James and Robin Millar, lost their vision due to a condition known as retinitis pigmentosa, where the photoreceptor cells at the back of the eye gradually cease to function.

The wafer-thin, 3mm square microelectronic chip has 1,500 light-sensitive pixels which take over the function of the photoreceptor rods and cones.

The surgery involves placing it behind the retina from where a fine cable runs to a control unit under the skin behind the ear.

I believe this is the project I described in Aug. 18, 2011 posting (scroll down 2/3 of the way), which has 30 participants in the clinical trials, worldwide.

It sometimes seems that we’re not creating new life through biological means, synthetic or otherwise, but, rather, with our machines, which we are integrating into our own and other animal’s flesh.

God from the machine: Deus ex machina and augmentation

Wherever you go, there it is: ancient Greece. Deus Ex, a game series from Eidos Montréal, is likely referencing ‘deus ex machina’, a term applied to a theatrical device (in both senses of the word) attributed to  playwrights of ancient Greece. (For anyone who’s unfamiliar with the term, at the end of a play, all of the conflicts would be resolved by a god descending from the heavens. The term refers both to the plot device itself and to the mechanical device used to lower the ‘god’.)

The latest game in the series, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a role-playing shooter, will be released August 23, 2011. From the August 16, 2011 article by Susan Karlin for Fast Company,

The result—Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a role-playing shooter that comes out August 23–extrapolates MicroTransponder, prosthetics, robotics, and other current augmentation technology into a vision of how technologically enhanced people might gain superhuman abilities and at what cost.

… “We built a timeline that traces the history of augmentation, creating new things, and predicting how would it get out into society. We wanted to ground it in today, and make something where everyone could say, ‘I can see the world going that way.'” [Mary DeMarle, Human Revolution’s lead writer]

Human Revolution, although the third in the series, is a prequel to the original Deus Ex which took place 25 years after Human Revolution.

I’m glad to see games that bring up interesting philosophical questions and possible social impacts of emerging technologies along with the action. In a February 3, 2011 interview with Mary DeMarle, Quintin Smith of Rock, Paper, Shotgun posed these questions,

RPS: Finally, with anti-augmentation groups featuring in Human Revolution, I was just wondering what your own opinions are on human augmentation and human bioengineering are.

MD: Oh, gosh. Well I have to tell you that the joke on the team is that for the duration of this story I’d be supporting the anti-technology view, because most people on the team wouldn’t be anti-technology, and it’d help me make the game more human, you know? And now that the project’s over I bought my first iPad, and I have to admit I’m suddenly like “You know, if I could get one of those InfoLinks in my head, it’d be really useful.”

But you know, all of this stuff is already out there. We already have people putting cameras in their eyes to improve their vision. [emphasis mine] The technology’s there, we’re just not aware of it. As far as our team’s technology expert is concerned, human augmentation’s been going on for decades. If you look at all the sports controversy regarding drugs, that is augmentation. It’s already happening.

RPS: But you have no qualms with our using technology to make ourselves more than we can be?

MD: From my perspective, I think mankind will always try to be more than he is. That’s part of being human. But I do admit we have to be careful about how we do it.

In my February 2, 2010 posting (scroll down about 1/2 way), I featured a quote that resonates with DeMarle’s comments about humans trying to be more,

“I don’t think I would have said this if it had never happened,” says Bailey, referring to the accident that tore off his pinkie, ring, and middle fingers. “But I told Touch Bionics I’d cut the rest of my hand off if I could make all five of my fingers robotic.”

Bailey went on to say that having machinery incorporated into his body made him feel “above human”.

As for cameras being implanted in eyes to improve vision, I would be delighted to hear from anyone who has information about this. The only project I could find in my search was EyeBorg, a project with a one-eyed Canadian filmmaker who was planning to have a video camera implanted into his eye socket to record images. From the About the Project page,

Take a one eyed film maker, an unemployed engineer, and a vision for something that’s never been done before and you have yourself the EyeBorg Project. Rob Spence and Kosta Grammatis are trying to make history by embedding a video camera and a transmitter in a prosthetic eye. That eye is going in Robs eye socket, and will record the world from a perspective that’s never been seen before.

There are more details about the EyeBorg project in a June 11, 2010 posting by Tim Hornyak for the Automaton blog (on the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] website),

When Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence was a kid, he would peer through the bionic eye of his Six Million Dollar action figure. After a shooting accident left him partially blind, he decided to create his own electronic eye. Now he calls himself Eyeborg.

Spence’s bionic eye contains a battery-powered, wireless video camera. Not only can he record everything he sees just by looking around, but soon people will be able to log on to his video feed and view the world through his right eye.

I don’t know how the Eyeborg project is proceeding as there haven’t been any updates on the site since August 25, 2010.

While I wish Quintin Smith had asked for more details about the science information DeMarle was passing on in the February 3, 2011 interview, I think it’s interesting to note that information about science and technology comes to us in many ways: advertisements, popular television programmes, comic books, interviews, and games, as well as, formal public science outreach programmes through museums and educational institutions.

ETA August 19, 2011: I found some information about visual prosthetics at the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) website, We can rebuild you page featuring a TEDxVienna November 2010 talk by electrical engineer, Grégoire Cosendai, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He doesn’t mention the prosthetics until approximately 13 minutes, 25 seconds into the talk. The work is being done to help people with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that is incurable at this time but it may have implications for others. There are 30 people worldwide in a clinical trial testing a retinal implant that requires the person wear special glasses containing a camera and an antenna. For Star Trek fans, this seems similar to Geordi LaForge‘s special glasses.

ETA Sept. 13, 2011: Better late than never, here’s an excerpt from Dexter Johnson’s Sept. 2, 2011 posting (on his Nanoclast blog at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE] website) about a nano retina project,

The Israel-based company [Nano Retina] is a joint venture between Rainbow Medical and Zyvex Labs, the latter being well known for its work in nanotechnology and its founder Jim Von Ehr, who has been a strong proponent of molecular mechanosynthesis.

It’s well worth contrasting the information in the company video that Dexter provides and the information in the FET video mentioned in the Aug. 19, 2011 update preceding this one. The company presents a vastly more optimistic claim for the vision these implants will provide than one would expect after viewing the information in the FET video about clinical trials, for another similar (to me) system, currently taking place.