EAGER: Optofluidic Strategies for Therapeutic Delivery of Neurotransmitters to Restore Vision

University Of Illinois At Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Vision is our most important and complex sense critical to daily living. Therefore, irreversible blinding diseases of the eye such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa that affect over 10 million people in the US alone have devastating consequences on the quality of life. Loss of vision in these diseases is due to progressive degeneration of cells called photoreceptors in the retina. The photoreceptors normally convert the incident light information into electrochemical signals that are relayed to the brain for the perception of sight through a complex neural network. Degeneration causes a break in the neural network and thereby the process of vision, even though the rest of the neural network is functionally intact. Retinal implants seeking to replace degenerated cells by stimulating surviving cells with electrical current are emerging as a promising option for treating such blindness. But, because current is an unnatural stimulus, they have difficulty restoring naturalistic vision and visual acuity below the legal blindness limit. Recent research from the PI's group has demonstrated that stimulating a live retinal tissue in a dish with the brain chemical glutamate mimics its natural activation following visual stimulation. Artificially stimulating the retina with brain chemicals delivered through a tiny device implanted in the back of the eye could potentially restore more naturalistic vision and better visual acuity than current retinal prostheses. A suitable technology for the delivery of chemicals through an implantable device in the eye, is currently lacking. The proposed project aims to fill this technological gap by exploring strategies that could enable light-controlled delivery of therapeutic amounts of brain chemicals using only natural light passing through the eye. If successful, this project could accelerate the development of an implantable device to deliver brain chemicals to the retina and help restore high-acuity naturalistic vision to millions of people who are blind by neurodegenerative retinal diseases. It could also potentially prove effective in treating other neurodegenerative eye diseases such as glaucoma and optic neuritis that preclude the use of retinal prosthetics and brain disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.