Sneak Peek: Tiny Wireless Glaucoma Sensor

The MIT Technology Review has a piece on a new bit of eye-candy: a pressure sensor to measure glaucoma continuously, instead of once every 6 months in the ophthalmologist’s office.

…According to Shareef, a continuous monitoring device, like those used to measure an irregular heartbeat, would be a welcome tool.
Toward that end, Irazoqui and his colleagues have designed a tiny microchip, to be implanted between two layers of the eye. The sensor is designed to measure intraocular pressure and wirelessly transmit the data to a nearby computer. A doctor can then access the data and review it for possible warning signs. At present, Irazoqui’s team has engineered a prototype of the sensor, although he and his colleagues have yet to test it on animals. The researchers plan to present the details of their research later this month at the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society’s conference in Lyon, France.
One of the major obstacles in creating this type of device is designing a tiny but highly functional chip that uses very little power. Irazoqui’s group has overcome this problem in part by designing the sensor to run on nanowatts rather than on microwatts. “We use a million times less power, which means we can get a million times more on the circuit,” says Irazoqui, who declined to release further details until he presents the research later this month. The researchers will begin testing the implant in animals by December.

All this talk of glaucoma got us humming an old tune … we wondered: Is the Glaucoma Hymn still online? Why yes, yes it is.
More from Purdue University researcher, Pedro Irazoqui and his lab…
Medgadget’s Glaucoma Archives…