First liquid retina prosthesis developed to counteract damage from degenerative diseases

Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT; Genoa, Italy) have applied nanotechnology to the development of the first liquid retina prosthesis – an aqueous suspension of photoactive nanoparticles that replace damaged photoreceptors. The study has been published in Nature Nanotechnology and describes the potential of this novel technology to counteract the effects of diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, which cause the degeneration of photoreceptors of the retina, resulting in blindness. Building on the planar artificial retinal model, developed by the same team at IIT in 2017, this ‘second generation’ artificial retina is biomimetic, offers high...