“Seeing the Future: The Bionic Eye and Beyond” presentation to be streamed next week

An update on the progress and future of the bionic eye – a prototype of which has provided “a sense of vision” to some blind patients – will be given next week.

Associate Professor Penny Allen leads bionic eye research at the Centre for Eye Research Australia, and will give the 2019 Gerard Crock lecture on “Seeing the Future: The Bionic Eye and Beyond”. The presentation will be streamed on Thursday 21 November, 6-7.30pm AEDT, at CERA’s Facebook page and website.    

Allen’s team at CERA has developed a bionic eye prototype, which has given four retinitis pigmentosa sufferers the ability to “detect edges, shapes and movement.” RP is a degenerative genetic condition. 

According to a statement from CERA in July, the device is close to clinical translation.

As reported by @AuManufacturing last year, the Bionic Vision consortium – made up of Melbourne research groups, including CERA, and privately funded Bionic Vision Technologies – were responsible for the work. BVT successfully raised $23.6 million last year to fund development and clinical studies.

The device uses a camera on a pair of glasses, an external vision processor, and an electrode array behind the retina that stimulates the optic nerve. 

Picture: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

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