Video Of The Week –Secrets beneath the “Western Wall”- https://tinyurl.com/ycunqasm
By Simona Shemer, NoCamels
March 05, 2018
Israeli
ophthalmologists at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan
University’s Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA) revealed
last month that they have successfully developed eyedrops that repair the
corneas, improving near-sighted and far-sighted vision. These “nanodrops” were
successfully tested on pigs’ corneas, according to the researchers, and are
expected to be tested on humans in clinical trials later this year.
If proven
successful on humans, the groundbreaking discovery could remove the need for
eyeglasses. The nanodrops are made up of a synthetic nanoparticle solution,
which helps correct cornea-related vision problems.
Dr. David
Smadja, a research associate at BINA and the Head of the Ophthalmology Research
Unit at Shaare Zedek who led the team of ophthalmologists, made the
announcement at Shaare Zedek’s second annual research conference last month. He
said the nanodrops could “revolutionize ophthalmological and optometry
treatments of patients with myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia
(farsightedness) and other refractory conditions,” The Jerusalem Post reported.
According to Dr. Smadja, the drops could eventually replace multifocal lenses,
and allow people to see objects from different distances. “This is a new
concept for correcting refractory problems,” Smadja added.
Smadja
did not say how often the eye drops needed to be implemented to fix corneas or
replace glasses. It was also unclear what additional work was needed before
moving on to clinical trials on humans.
A
research abstract of the experiment on pigs analyzed the refractive errors of
10 pig eyes before and after the introduction of the “nanodrops,” and the
results “have shown promising potential for a revolutionary alternative
non-invasive correction of refractive errors.”
If the
clinical testing on humans is successful, potential patients will be able to
use a smartphone app to “measure their eye refraction at home, create a laser
pattern, and then ‘laser corneal stamping’ of an optical pattern onto the
corneal surface of their eyes,” The Jerusalem Post reports.
Smadja
worked with Professor Zeev Zalevsky of Bar Ilan’s Kofkin Faculty of Engineering
and Professor Jean-Paul Lellouche of Department of Chemistry the BIU Institute
for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, along with other experts from the
Shaare Zedek Medical Center, to develop the eye drops.
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