BIONIC EYE TRIAL RESULTS SHOW SUBSTANTIAL VISION IMPROVEMENTS OVER TWO AND A HALF YEARS Blind participants with retinitis pigmentosa able to locate doorways, avoid obstacles
SEGMENT
Filmed in Melbourne and Sydney | February 2025
Released on Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month
INTERVIEWED
Professor James Fallon,
Chief Technology Officer Bionics Institute &
Head of the Medical Bionics Department, University of Melbourne
Associate Professor Penelope Allen,
Head of Bionic Eye Project & Principal Investigator,
Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) &
Vitreoretinal Surgeon,
Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital
Dr Ash Attia
Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director
Bionic Vision Technologies
Results of the first clinical trial of Australia’s ‘second generation’ bionic eye have demonstrated ‘substantial improvement’ in four participants’ functional vision, daily activities and quality of life over a period of more than two and a half years.
Detailed outcomes from the trial, led by the Centre for Eye Research Australia, Bionics Institute, University of Melbourne and Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, were published in Ophthalmology Science.
The findings add to interim results which showed that the second-generation bionic eye developed by Australian company Bionic Vision Technologies provided rapid improvements for four patients with blindness caused the genetic eye condition retinitis pigmentosa.
Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited retinal disease which affects about two million people worldwide and is one of the leading causes of vision loss in working-age people.
The bionic eye comprises an electrode array, designed by the Bionics Institute and the Centre for Eye Research Australia, that is surgically implanted behind the eye. The electrode receives signals from a video camera mounted on glasses, which stimulate the patient’s retina.
Credit: Retinitis pigmentosa fact sheet from Retina Australia
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Dr Wendy Falloon is an Anaesthetist of over 30 years experience and a Fellow of Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA). She studied medicine at the University of Tasmania, and worked in Hobart, Sydney and the Uk while completing her specialist qualifications. Her primary professional focus has always been to deliver the best possible experience of anaesthesia to each and every patient, and for them to know that she sees and values them, and their stories.
Having been born in Africa, she realised even as a child that health and wealth were largely a product of where people happen to be born. This sowed the seed of her ongoing desire to be of help to others in less fortunate circumstances, ultimately leading to her volunteer work with the Mercy Ships charity. This is one of the most fulfilling aspects of her career, and she has volunteered in Africa with Mercy Ships 8 times since 2014.
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