Injectable prostheses restore vision

“At the Italian Institute of Technology [Genoa], scientists have now come up with an injectable retinal prosthesis that does away with all the complexity [of specialized electronics] and works directly to take over the function of diseased photoreceptors. The new approach relies on photoactive polymeric nanoparticles that are one one hundredth of a diameter of human hair and behave like photovoltaic cells. These are suspended in a liquid and can be injected en masse under the retina. Once inside, they settle down and can then be used to electrically activate existing retinal neurons when light strikes the nanoparticles.”  MORE

 Image Credit:  Italian Institute of Technology and MedGadget.com