Research
Team Highlights
Auciello Awarded
Honorary Professorship
Orlando
Auciello has received a rare honoris causa professorship from
the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, for his
contributions to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Artificial
Retina Project.
As one of the project’s
principal investigators, Auciello is developing an ultrathin,
biocompatible coating for the artificial retina. The thin-film
coating is based on an R&D 100 Award-winning ultrananocrystalline
diamond technology. His group also is exploring bioinert oxide
films to serve as an alternative encapsulating coating and to
enable high-energy storage capacitors. Embedding these capacitors
into the artificial retina will bring it a step closer to full
miniaturization.
Auciello is a senior
scientist with Argonne National Laboratory’s Interfacial
Materials Group and Argonne’s new Center for Nanoscale Materials.
Greenbaum,
Humayun Receive Grant from National Academies
Elias Greenbaum, a principal investigator in the U.S. Department
of Energy’s Artificial Retina Project, and Mark Humayun, the lead
investigator, were awarded a 2006 National Academies Keck Futures
Initiative (NAFKI) grant in April. The grant will provide seed
funding for the development of a smart prosthetic device that
delivers oxygen to ischemic tissue. Such a device could help people
suffering from diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes
caused by changes in the blood vessels of the retina. This eye
disease is a leading cause of blindness in adults and also may
have application to other ischemic diseases. Each year, the competitive
NAFKI seed grants provide funding for critical research on bold
new ideas. Their objective is to stimulate interdisciplinary research
that could yield significant benefits to science and society.
Greenbaum is a corporate
fellow and leader of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Molecular
Bioscience and Biotechnology Research Group. He also serves as
an adjunct professor in the University of Tennessee’s Genome Science
and Technology program. Humayun is a professor of ophthalmology
at the Keck School of Medicine and of biomedical engineering in
the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern
California (USC). He is also associate director of research at
USC’s Doheny Eye Institute. Together, they founded DOE’s artificial
retina program, which is aimed at restoring sight to people who
are blind from age-related macular degeneration and retinitis
pigmentosa.
Lazzi Tapped
To Head IEEE Journal
Gianluca Lazzi, a prinicipal investigator on the U.S. Department
of Energy’s Artificial Retina Project, has been selected to serve
as editor-in-chief of the journal IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation
Letters for the term 2008-10. Lazzi is a professor of electrical
and computer engineering at North Carolina State University. His
group performs electromagnetic and thermal modeling on the DOE
retinal prosthesis to help determine how much energy can be used
to stimulate the remaining nondiseased cells. They also identify
induced electromagnetic fields and temperature increases generated
when the device is operating.
Second Sight Wins NIH Award
Second Sight Medical Products Inc. (SSMP) has been awarded a renewal
of its National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bioengineering Research
Program (BRP) grant, administered by the National Eye Institute
(NEI). The renewal is for five years and $13.3 million and extends
the total grant period to 10 years and $26.5 million. The renewal
grant will support basic science research in animal models, psychophysical
testing in patients, and technology development and integration.
Second Sight BRP partners include the Doheny Eye Institute, Salk
Institute for Biological Studies, and Alfred Mann Foundation.
During the first funding period, SSMP manufactured the Argus I
devices that were implanted in six patients, and integrated the
technologies developed by BRP partners and others into the Argus
II device now in clinical trials. Robert Greenberg, SSMP’s
president, CEO and lead investigator for the BRP says, “The
generous support by NEI not only validates our capabilities and
progress to date, but will enable the development of more clinically
useful devices for our patients.”
BRP grants, which support both basic and applied research, enable
technologies to move from the lab to the clinic. SSMP, which also
receives substantial support from private investors including
its founder, Al Mann, began clinical trials for its new 60-channel
Argus II retinal prosthesis this summer. Greenberg adds, “We
have been very pleased with the results from our 16-electrode
Argus I device—the world’s only powered retinal prosthesis
in daily use by patients today—and are optimistic that our
second-generation implant will prove even more effective.”
New Book in
Press
Artificial Sight, a book based on talks and posters presented
at the Second DOE International Symposium on Artificial Sight
(2005), is scheduled to be published in October by Springer. Editors
of the book are M. S. Humayun, J. D. Weiland, G. Chader, and E. Greenbaum.
The book will appear in the series Biological and Medical Physics–Biomedical
Engineering (www.springeronline.com/series/3740).
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