In the News: Promising Results for Australian Bionic Eye

Image credit: Bionics Institute

A clinical trial of Australia’s “second-generation” bionic eye has shown substantial improvement in four study participants’ functional vision, daily activities and quality of life across more than two and a half years.

In this national story for 9News, hear from the Bionic Institute’s Professor James Fallon and The Centre for Eye Research Australia’s Associate Professor Penny Allen who talk to these exciting results and what’s next, together with a patient’s firsthand experience of this vision-enabling innovation.

The technology utilises an electrode array surgically implanted behind the eye, which can then receive signals from a video camera mounted on glasses to in turn stimulate the patient’s retina and help the patient detect edges, shapes and movement.

The trial was led by the Centre for Eye Research Australia, Bionics Institute, University of Melbourne and Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, with findings published last month in Ophthalmology Science.

Check out the 9News segment below, and refer to the Bionics Institute website for more information about this pioneering research.