The Development of Smart Contact Lens System for Glaucoma Diagnosis and Treatment

Institute of Electrical and Control Engineering     2020/07/20
The Development of Smart Contact Lens System for Glaucoma Diagnosis and Treatment
  • GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
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  • The Development of Smart Contact Lens System for Glaucoma Diagnosis and Treatment
High intraocular pressure is a common symptom in glaucoma patients, but the relationship between intraocular pressure and neurodegeneration is still unclear due to inconvenient measurement of intraocular pressure. The main treatment method for glaucoma patients is to place eye drops on the patients by themselves, which has a poor treatment effect. In order to solve the above problems, we will combine the professional fields of motor, materials and biology to develop smart contact lenses, which is a complete system with both diagnosis and treatment. The diagnostic system of smart contact lenses will use micro-electromechanical technology to make a pressure sensor, which will be integrated with the radio frequency chip and embedded in the contact lens. The system can detect changes in intraocular pressure and transmit data to an external reader for storage via wireless transmission technology. The drug release therapy system will form a stable bond with a small-sized nanocarrier and a charged or oil-water phase drug, and use the phase change of the contact lens precursor during the cross-linking process to transfer the entire drug-loaded system to the inside of the contact lens, and the voltage control chip regulates the drug release. According to the first year, the rodent glaucoma experimental animal platform will find the correlation between intraocular pressure and glaucoma induction, and use related parameters as the basis for fine-tuning the sensor. In the second year, the cell and in vitro retinal tissue culture and rodent experimental animal platform will conduct biosafety and drug screening and treatment tests, and the results will serve as the basis for finetuning the sensing system and drug carrier. In the third year, smart contact lenses with both sensing and drug release will use the rabbit glaucoma experimental animal test platform to verify the efficacy of intraocular pressure sensing and drug release. This innovative intelligent contact lens can shorten the diagnosis time of glaucoma, improve the treatment effect, and reduce the blindness rate of glaucoma.