Subretinal implant uses light instead of batteries, shows promise in initial testing — Engadget There’s been significant progress in bringing sight to the blind in recent years, and this looks set to continue that miraculous trend. Scientists at Stanford University have invented a subretinal photodiode implant for people who have lost their vision due to degenerative retinal diseases. Existing tech involves batteries and wires, but the new implant works without such crude appendages. Instead, it’s activated by near-infrared beams projected by a camera that’s mounted on glasses worn by the patient and can record what the patient sees. The beams then stimulate the optic nerve to allow light perception, motion detection and even basic shape awareness. It hasn’t actually been tested with humans just yet, but the first few rodents volunteers have yet to lodge a single complaint. BBC News Nature Photonics

Subretinal implant uses light instead of batteries, shows promise in initial testing — Engadget

There’s been significant progress in bringing sight to the blind in recent years, and this looks set to continue that miraculous trend. Scientists at Stanford University have invented a subretinal photodiode implant for people who have lost their vision due to degenerative retinal diseases. Existing tech involves batteries and wires, but the new implant works without such crude appendages. Instead, it’s activated by near-infrared beams projected by a camera that’s mounted on glasses worn by the patient and can record what the patient sees. The beams then stimulate the optic nerve to allow light perception, motion detection and even basic shape awareness. It hasn’t actually been tested with humans just yet, but the first few rodents volunteers have yet to lodge a single complaint.

BBC News
sourceNature Photonics

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New class of implantable monitoring devices for heart patients CardioMEMS, which has more than 65 employees, grew out of Georgia Tech research.  The company’s products combine wireless communications technology with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication, providing doctors with more information while making monitoring less invasive for patients. MEMS uses micro-machining fabrication to build electrical and mechanical systems at the micron scale — one-millionth of a meter. Using technology originally developed for the integrated circuit industry, MEMS is an attractive platform for medical devices because mechanical, sensing and computational functions can be placed on a single chip. CardioMEMS began marketing its first product in 2006: the EndoSure sensor, which measures blood pressure inside a repaired abdominal aortic aneurysm. Implanted along with a stent graft during endovascular repair, this tiny sensor may allow doctors to monitor post-surgery patients more effectively than the CT scans that had previously been used. 

New class of implantable monitoring devices for heart patients

CardioMEMS, which has more than 65 employees, grew out of Georgia Tech research. 

The company’s products combine wireless communications technology with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication, providing doctors with more information while making monitoring less invasive for patients.

MEMS uses micro-machining fabrication to build electrical and mechanical systems at the micron scale — one-millionth of a meter. Using technology originally developed for the integrated circuit industry, MEMS is an attractive platform for medical devices because mechanical, sensing and computational functions can be placed on a single chip.

CardioMEMS began marketing its first product in 2006: the EndoSure sensor, which measures blood pressure inside a repaired abdominal aortic aneurysm. Implanted along with a stent graft during endovascular repair, this tiny sensor may allow doctors to monitor post-surgery patients more effectively than the CT scans that had previously been used. 

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