Hamburg -
It would be one of the biggest sensations in medicine - and it does not seem to be too utopian:
The blind will see again soon!
Doctors at the University of Tübingen are currently testing micro-chips that will enable a simple way of seeing. As the news magazine Der Spiegel reports in its latest issue, the team implanted the chip under one of the retina of blind patients. So that people could recognize objects and letters read.
In particular, the success in a 45-year-old Finns with their first name Miika be seen by experts as a breakthrough in the development of visual implants. "We showed at Miika that he had passed with the help of the visual prosthesis, the limit beyond which he is legally no more than blind," says the head of the working group, Eberhart Zrenner.
The implant has a 1500 photo cells, which are housed on a three by three millimeters tiny micro-chip that was placed in a four-hour operation conducted under the retina. "The implant is well tolerated by the body, Zrenner said the magazine. "None of the patients we have observed serious problems such as inflammation."
Due to requirements of the Ethics Committee of the University of Tübingen, the vision chip, however, already had to be removed after a few weeks. Professor Zrenner, who founded a company called Retina Implant, announced in the "mirror" to equip the next year about two dozen patients with new, wireless vision chips, which will then remain permanently under the retina.
