
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 12, 1995                   TAG: 9510120065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: C-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Orlando Sentinel
DATELINE: ORLANDO, FLA.                                LENGTH: Medium

COMPUTER CHIP COULD RESTORE SIGHT TO BLIND

Scientists think they are tantalizingly close to developing an artificial retina that would permit people with some forms of blindness to see, a researcher said Wednesday.

Speaking in Orlando at a conference of science writers, Dr. Joseph Rizzo of Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, said the artificial retina would do for the blind what the cochlear implant did for the deaf.

``We have a single goal,'' Rizzo said, ``to develop a fully functional retinal prosthesis.'' He expects tests on a chip, a tiny electronic device, to begin next year.

The hope is to implant the computer chip in the rear of patients' eyes. The chip contains an array of electrodes that receive signals from a laser-producing camera connected to special glasses. The chip can convert information from the camera into electrical impulses that are perceived as a visual image by the brain.

The artificial retina would aid people afflicted with such conditions as macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa and other forms of blindness caused by dysfunctions in the rear of the eye.

``I do not view this as a cure,'' said Rizzo, who underscored that several questions remain to be answered before the device can be mass produced and implanted in patients.

Rizzo and a team of scientists from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have already produced their prototype, which cost $500,000. The researchers have been working on the implantable solar-powered chip and its associated hardware, which attaches to eyeglasses, for the past 51/2 years.

Now that they have refined the electronics and have found a material that is compatible with the eye, Rizzo said he hopes the chip eventually can be produced for as little as $50.

The Harvard/MIT project is one of two in the United States racing to produce an artificial retina. A third team in Germany also is trying to develop one.

The other American researchers, led by Dr. Eugene deJuan of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has tested an artificial retina in the blind. However, deJuan's chip is designed exclusively for retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, a progressive retinal disease that usually begins in childhood. The Harvard/MIT chip would be applicable to several other vision-destroying conditions involving the retina.

by CNB