By editorial@silicon.com, 6 November 1998 00:15
NEWS A microchip implant has enabled a blind man to see for the first time in 15 years. Harold Churchey, 71, saw his first images in over a decade when doctors at the John Hopkins hospital in Baltimore inserted a 2mm chip over his damaged retina. A tiny camera on a spectacle lens was then used to beam signals from simple images onto the chip's 25 electrodes, and along the optic nerve to his brain. Churchey, who was one of 15 patients to undergo the operation, said: "It was just like switching a light on." However, the experiment was limited to 45 minutes, as doctors do not have ethical approval to permanently insert foreign objects into the eye until further research is completed. The research was pioneered by Professor Mark Humayun, a surgeon at the hospital, who said: "Restoring lost sight is the Holy Grail for eye research." Humayun said future operations could help restore some sight to people suffering certain types of blindness, enabling them to "move around and maybe read large print."
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