In certain workplaces, wearing contact lenses can complicate eye safety, according to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.

New Lens Aims to Treat Contact Lens Wearers Who Suffer from Seasonal Allergies

Investigation to initiate in Q2 2023

As of today, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India is 59662, with 17847 recovered cases and 1981 deaths. The concerns related to COVID-19 pandemic is increasing day by day. The WHO and CDC along with many healthcare institutions

As of today, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India is 59662, with 17847 recovered cases and 1981 deaths. The concerns related to COVID-19 pandemic is increasing day by day. The WHO and CDC along with many healthcare institutions

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We already supply leading brands such as Acuvue Oasys 12 Package and 24 Packs at up to 70% off. Now you and your friends can receive an additional 15% off your contact lens purchases.

Not only can the smart contact lenses monitor glucose levels, they can also release medication directly into the membrane of the eye.

The post New Contact Lenses May Soon Allow Diabetics to Monitor Glucose Levels With Just the Blinks of Their Eyes appeared first on Good News Network.

Provided is a polymer material having superior water wettability and lubricity, and enabling persistence of the same by allowing the surfactant to be retained by the polymer material so as not to be gradually released. The present invention is directed to a polymer material including: [I] a polymer having a constitutional unit derived from (A) a polymerizable compound having an acryloyloxy group and not having a silicon atom; and [II] a surfactant. The content of the surfactant [II] is preferably 0.05% by mass or greater and 1% by mass or less. The surfactant [II] is preferably a nonionic surfactant having a polyoxyethylene group.

Medical devices having a wettable, biocompatible surface are described herein. Processes for producing such devices are also described.

A gripper (1) for a contact lens (CL) includes a gripper head (10) having a bearing surface (11), the bearing surface (11) having at least one opening (110) through which underpressure can be applied in order to suck the contact lens (CL) against the bearing surface (11) and through which overpressure can be applied in order to release the contact lens (CL) from the bearing surface (11). The gripper further includes a detection opening (111) in the bearing surface (11) through which a separate underpressure can be applied.

I stopped wearing contacts for a few months and now they make my eyes red and unhappy even if I only wear them for a few hours. What have I done wrong?

I've worn contacts every day for years and years, but I recently stopped bothering on account of being at home all the time anyway. The last two times I tried wearing them, everything felt fine until I took them out and then I had red, irritated eyes and some discharge the next morning. This last time I only left them in for a couple of hours to see if it helped but I've had the same problem. Does anyone know how I can fix this? Thanks!

There has been so much hype about the “Internet of Things” (IoT) that it is refreshing to hear about a cutting-edge development project that can bring concrete benefits to millions of people. That project is the ongoing development of the Google Smart Contact Lens, and it was detailed in a keynote speech June 8 at the Design Automation Conference (DAC 2015).

The keynote speech was given by Brian Otis (right), a director at Google and a research associate professor at the University of Washington. The “smart lens” that the project envisions is essentially a disposable contact lens that fits on an eye and continuously monitors blood glucose levels. This is valuable information for anyone who has, or may someday have, diabetes.

Since he was speaking to an engineering audience, Otis focused on the challenges behind building such a device, and described some of the strategies taken by Google and its partner, Novartis. The project required new approaches to miniaturization, low-power design, and connectivity, as well as a comfortable and reliable silicon-to-human interface. Otis discussed the “why” as well and showed how the device could potentially save or improve millions of lives.

Millions of Users

First, a bit of background. Google announced the smart lens project in a blog post in January 2014. Since then it has been featured in news outlets including Forbes, Time, and the Wall Street Journal. In March 2015, Time reported that Google has been granted a patent for a smart contact lens.

The smart lens monitors the level of blood glucose by looking at its concentration in tears. The lens includes a wireless system on chip (SoC) and a miniaturized glucose sensor. A tiny pinhole in the lens allows tear fluid to seep into the sensor, and a wireless antenna handles communications to the wireless devices.

“We figure that if we can solve a huge problem, it is probably worth doing,” Otis said. “Diabetes is one example.” He noted 382 million people worldwide have diabetes today, and that 35% of the U.S. population may be pre-diabetic. Today, diabetics must *** their fingers to test blood glucose levels, a procedure that is invasive, painful, and subject to infrequent monitoring.

According to Otis, the smart contact lens represents a “new category of wearable devices that are comfortable, inexpensive, and empowering.” The lens does sensor data logging and uses a portable instrument to measure glucose levels. It is thin, cheap, and disposable, he said.

Moreover, the lens is not just for people already diagnosed with diabetes—it’s for anyone who is pre-diabetic, or may be at risk due to genetic predisposition. “If we are pro-active rather than re-active,” Otis said, “Instead of waiting until a person has full-fledged diabetes, we could make a huge difference in peoples’ lives and lower the costs of treating them.”

Technical Challenges

No one has built anything quite like the smart lens, so researchers at Google and Novartis are treading new ground. Otis identified three key challenges:

• Miniaturization: Everything must be really small—the SoC, the passive components, the power supply. Components must be flexible and cheap, and support thin-film integration.
• Platform: Google has developed a reusable platform that includes tiny, always-on wireless sensors, ultra low-power components, and standards-based interfaces.
• Data: Researchers are looking for the best ways to get the resulting data into a mobile device and onto the cloud.

Comfort is another concern. “This is not intended to be for the most severe cases,” Otis said. “This is intended to be for all of us as a pro-active way of improving our lifestyles.”

The platform provides a bidirectional encrypted wireless link, integrated power management, on-chip memory, standards-based RFID link, flexible sensor interface, high-resolution potentiostat sensor, and decoupling capacitors. Most of these capabilities are provided by the standard CMOS SoC, which is a couple hundred microns on a side and only “tens of microns” thick.

Otis noted that unpackaged ICs are typically 250 microns thick when they come back from the foundry. Thus, post-processing is needed so the IC will fit into a contact lens.

Furthermore, the design requires precision analog circuitry and additional environmental sensors. “Some of this stuff sounds mundane but it is really hard, especially when you find out you can’t throw large decoupling capacitors and bypass capacitors onto a board, and all that has to be re-integrated into the chip,” Otis said.

Sensor Challenges

Getting information from the human body is challenging. The smart lens sensor does a direct chemical measurement on the surface of the eye. The sensor is designed to work with very low glucose concentrations. This is because the concentration of glucose in tears is an order of magnitude lower than it is in blood.

In brief, the sensor has two parallel plates that are coated with an enzyme that converts glucose into hydrogen peroxide, which flows around the electrodes of the sensor. This is actually a fairly standard way of doing glucose monitoring. However, the smart lens sensor has two electrodes compared to the typical three.

In manufacturing, it is essential to keep costs low. Otis outlined a three-step manufacturing process:

• Start with the bottom layer, and mold a contact lens in the way you typically would.
• Add the electronics package on top of that layer.
• Build a second layer that encapsulates the electronics and provides the curvature needed for comfort and vision correction.

Beyond the technical challenges are the “clinical” challenges of working with human beings. The human body “is messy and very variable,” Otis said. This variability affects sensor performance and calibration, RF/electro-magnetic performance, system reliability, and comfort.

The final step is making use of the data. “We need to get the data from the device into a phone, and then display it so users can visualize the data,” Otis said. This provides “actionable feedback” to the person who needs it. Eventually, the data will need to be stored in the cloud.

As he concluded his talk, Otis noted that the platform his group developed may have many applications beyond glucose monitoring. “There is a lot you can do with a bunch of logic and sensing capability,” he said, “and there are hundreds of biomarkers beyond glucose.” Clearly this will be an interesting technology to watch.

Richard Goering

Related Blog Post

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Title: Could Your Contact Lenses Track, Treat Your Diabetes?
Category: Health News
Created: 4/24/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/27/2020 12:00:00 AM

Researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel say their contact lenses can restore lost colour contrast and improve colour perception by a factor of ten.

As of today, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India is 59662, with 17847 recovered cases and 1981 deaths. The concerns related to COVID-19 pandemic is increasing day by day. The WHO and CDC along with many healthcare institutions

As of today, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India is 59662, with 17847 recovered cases and 1981 deaths. The concerns related to COVID-19 pandemic is increasing day by day. The WHO and CDC along with many healthcare institutions