If you suffer from less than perfect vision, or if you’ve always been jealous of the zooming capacities of your DSRL lenses, you might just be in luck. Dr. Garth Webb not only found a way to restore 20/20 eyesight to people with eye problems, but give them vision that’s three times better than 20/20 (3×20/20).
The future is here, and it’s full of technological advancements meant to give us superpowers. The latest is a contact lens called “The Ocumetics Bionic Lens” that Dr. Garth Webb, founder and CEO of Ocumetics Technology Corp, developed when he set out on a mission to find a way to permanently eradicate the usage of glasses and contact lenses.
He firmly believes that perfect eyesight should be a human right.
Dr. Webb says that the The Ocumetics Bionic Lens will be implanted in patients age 25 or older, as he wants people’s eyes to be fully developed by the time the lens is added. Currently, that is also the minimum age required for Lasik eye surgery.
In a procedure that will only take eight (8) minutes, The Ocumetics Bionic Lens will be painlessly inserted in the eye and replace the natural lens in the human eye once the latter has been removed. It will then have full control over how a person sees the world, allowing the technology to give people eyesight that is three times better than 20/20, according to Webb.
Once implanted, the Bionic Lens will only need 10 seconds to settle on the eye before correcting and improving the patient’s vision. The optometrist will use a syringe filled with a saline solution to fix the bionic lens in the eye.
It’s a minor surgery that does not require anesthesia. It is also considered to be safer than laser surgery as laser surgery burns tissues, which can result in various complications such as not being able to see clearly at night, or becoming sensitive to glare.
Dr. Webb gave a statement to CBC News proudly informing that “This is vision enhancement that the world has never seen before. If you can just barely see the clock at 10 feet, when you get the Bionic Lens you can see the clock at 30 feet away”.
It is important to note that Dr. Webb’s lens will not trigger any biophysical changes in the eye and is perfectly safe. Furthermore, a patient that chooses the procedure will never get cataracts as the lens does not deteriorate.
Dr. Webb and his team of scientists worked on the project for eight (8) years in order to develop the technology. They had a $3 million budget, and several internationally-filed patents.
The Ocumetics Bionic Lens is currently undergoing clinical trials, however the technological advancement has been met with excitement by the medical community.
Dr. Vincent DeLuise, an ophthalmologist with teaching positions at both Yale University and at Weill Cornell Medical College, gave a statement to CBC News saying that the device is going to bring us very close the holy grail of excellent vision at all ranges, from distant, to intermediate, to near.
Dr. Webb predicts that his Bionic Lens will be ready for public release somewhere in the next two years.
He introduced The Ocumetics Bionic Lens at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery’s annual gathering in San Diego, attended by the top 14 ophthalmologists in the world.
Image Source: cbc.ca