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  • maxrmaxr

    article spanish version • • • • article english version

    Andrew's Young&Shaky blog

    feel free to ad others "examples"

    gash^o

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  • maxrmaxr

    Source BBC documentary, The Day I Got My Sight Back

    Source News.com.au

    Ian Tibbetts, 43, a blind British man has had his sight restored after pioneering surgery that involved implanting one of his teeth into his eye.

    The procedure, called osteo-odonto-keratoprothesis, or OOKP, was conducted by ophthalmic surgeon Christopher Liu at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton, Sussex.

    The complex surgery is a two-part procedure. First, the tooth and part of the jaw are removed, and a lens is inserted into the tooth using a drill. The tooth and lens are then implanted under the eye socket. After a few months, once the tooth has grown tissues and developed a blood supply, comes the second step: part of the cornea is sliced open and removed and the tooth is stitched into the eye socket. Since the tooth is the patient’s own tissue, the body does not reject it.

    "The tooth is like a picture frame which holds this tiny plastic lens," documentary maker Sally George told the BBC.

    Now, Mr Tibbetts' vision is now about 40 per cent, and although at first strangers stared at his new eye - which is pink, with a black pupil, he no longer is bothered by the attention.

    I have heard something about dentists using a "similar" technique for regrowing new teeth, but this is totally new (to me).

    gashô

  • maxrmaxr

    {...}
    The so-called smart lens, a tiny wireless computer chip that contains a glucose sensor and an antenna thinner than a strand of hair, is implanted between soft contact lens material, which is worn on the surface of the eye. The lens is powered by tapping into radio waves in the air and is designed to send data to a smart phone or other device.

    "Glucose levels change frequently with normal activity like exercising or eating or even sweating. Sudden spikes or precipitous drops are dangerous and not uncommon, requiring round-the-clock monitoring," say Google co-founders Brian Otis and Babak Parviz

    {...}

    Dr. Gerald Bernstein, director of the Friedman Diabetes Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, said the idea is "terrific, if it can be done." The key is whether the device measures just the tears on the outside of the eye or the aqueous humor, the thin, watery fluid that fills the space between the cornea and the iris.

    Aqueous fluid is "a more predictable reflection of the blood sugar," he said. "And don't forget, this is bodily fluid and not exactly what is in the blood."

    {...}

    "It's not an easy thing to do," Bernstein said of the Google device. "Do I think this is the ultimate answer? Probably not. But I do think it's something worth pursuing. It is a lot more convenient than the current continuous monitor, which does the same thing."

    An estimated 3 million Americans have type 1 diabetes, according to the The American Diabetes Association. It is usually diagnosed in children and young adults, and was previously known as juvenile diabetes.

    {...}

    "Ninety-nine percent of people with diabetes don't use a subcutaneous sensor," he said. "Those people are pricking their finger [to measure glucose in the blood] because a device under the skin is very expensive and has to be calibrated on a regular basis. The same would be true of the contact lens approach – you would have to have it calibrated to make sure it was meaningful."

    Source: abc news

    Official Google's blog

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