One of the important research challenges in the next decade is to develop a research strategy that will restore vision in patients who have lost their sight as a result of photoreceptor cell loss. Much recent media attention has been given to the development of implantable electronic prosthetics, which are able to take a visual image from a camera and stimulate the surviving output neurons of the retina (retinal ganglion cells).

Research in the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology is exploring a complementary optobionic strategy in which surviving retinal neurons are light sensitized to couple a functional prosthetic. With funding from EPSRC we are collaborating on the development of such a device and performing proof of principal experiments.