Contact Lenses

In the age of wearable computers, scientists in the laboratories of DARPA, Google, and universities around the world see contact lenses not as tools to improve our vision, but as opportunities to augment the human experience. But how? And why?

​Caused by autoimmune diseases, chemical burns, or sometimes even as a side effect of eye surgery, corneal melting is an incurable disease that's a major cause of blindness. It could someday be treated using a contact lens, however, which is currently in the works.

​Currently, if someone has a damaged cornea (the surface of the eye), it's covered with a "bandage" made from the amniotic membrane of human placentas. While this helps repair the eye, an Australian scientist is developing what he believes may be a better alternative – a wound-healing contact lens.

​If you've ever tried using eye drops, then you'll know that a great deal of the medication simply ends up being flushed from your eye by flowing tears. Drug-dispensing contact lenses are an alternative, with an experimental new one changing color to verify that it's done its job.

Contact lenses may be useful for restoring vision to short- or long-sighted people, but not so much at correcting color blindness. Now researchers from the University of Birmingham have developed a contact lens that can help correct certain kinds of color blindness, thanks to a safe, low cost dye.

​In the more advanced stages of diabetes, the patient has a real risk of going blind. While there are treatments to help keep this from happening, they're invasive and often painful. There may be new hope, though, in the form of glowing contact lenses.

​Over the years, we've gotten pretty used to glasses with photochromic lenses, which automatically darken when exposed to bright light. This Wednesday, however, Johnson & Johnson Vision announced the upcoming availability of its self-tinting contact lenses.

​​People that wear contact lenses may be familiar with the irritation that comes from dried-out eyes, which can cause damage to ocular tissue. Scientists say that they can better avert this danger, and it involves a molecule found in the stomach of pigs.

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world. Eye drops can help alleviate symptoms and stall the onset of vision loss, but patients don't always comply. New contact lenses impregnated with medication could solve this problem and improve patient outcomes.

A patent filing by Sony reveals its vision for a contact lens that not only records video and photo with a simple blink, but manages to store them right there and then on the user's eyeballs.

​Presbyopia is a common visual condition, in which the eye's lens stiffens to the point that it can't focus on close objects. Glasses, surgery and regular contact lenses do help, but they have drawbacks. That's why scientists are developing self-focusing contacts, inspired by a fish.​

Australian scientists have developed an electrically conductive contact lens with the potential to host miniature computer displays and sensors to help monitor health.