Engineer invents bionic eye to help the blind

Bioengineering professor Wentai Liu uses a toy eyeball to illustrate the electronic retinal implant that helps restore eyesight to the blind. For UCLA bioengineering professor Wentai Liu , more than two decades of visionary research burst into the headlines last month when the FDA approved what it called "the first bionic eye for the blind." The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System - developed by a team of physicians and engineers from around the country - aids adults who have lost their eyesight due to retinis pigmentosa (RP), age-related macular degeneration or other eye diseases that destroy the retina's light-sensitive photoreceptors. At the heart of the device is a tiny yet powerful computer chip developed by Liu that, when implanted in the retina, effectively sidesteps the damaged photoreceptors to "trick" the eye into seeing. The Argus II operates with a miniature video camera mounted on a pair of eyeglasses that sends information about images it detects to a microprocessor worn on the user's waistband. The microprocessor wirelessly transmits electronic signals to the computer chip, a fingernail-size grid made up of 60 circuits. These chips stimulate the retina's nerve cells with electronic impulses which head up the optic nerve to the brain's visual cortex. There, the brain assembles them into a composite image. The retinal implant, picking up signals from a camera in a pair of sunglasses, sends electronic impulses up the optic nerve to the brain, which assembles them into an image. Courtesy of Doheny Retina Institute, USC.