Blindness is a disease which affects million of people around the world and many scientists are trying to find ways of curing or preventing it. Although the medical research can be called “advanced”, until now there is no certain cure for blind people, but this can change thanks to researchers from the UC Davis.
Biomedical engineers at UC Davis are claiming that they have developed smart contact lenses which can prevent glaucoma, the main cause for blindness. These lenses can measure the pressure in the eye and they can properly administer medication.
The smart contact lenses are made of a material called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) which is covered in powdered silver. This leads to conductive wires and thanks to these, the lenses will monitor constantly the pressure within the eye, will send data to a computer and then doctors will know what treatment is better for the patient.
This material and the smart lenses were developed by Tingrui Pan, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and Hailin Cong, postdoctoral researcher at the UC Davis. An important thing is that the silver powder coat has antimicrobial properties therefore it will kill all microbes.
For the moment, the researchers will try to get approval for testing the lenses on humans and if they can prove that the lenses will not have any side-effect then they should get the approval and cure millions of blind people.