Sheila Nirenberg: A prosthetic eye to treat blindness

http://www.ted.com At TEDMED, Sheila Nirenberg shows a bold way to create sight in people with certain kinds of blindness: by hooking into the optic nerve and sending signals from a camera direct to the brain.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate

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Science & Technology

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• Sheila Nirenberg
• prosthetic
• eye
• blindness
• Medical
• research
• Medicine
• Science
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• TED
• TEDTalk
• TEDTalks
• TED Talk
• TEDMED
• brain

[Kurtlane]

Wow! This is very important to me. I am already blind on one eye, and the other one is going too. So this gives me hope.

Thanks so much for posting it.

[twistedbass15]

GENIUS GENIUS GENIUS GENIUS GENIUS GENIUS to the power of GENIUS

[jkgjihghb]

@jkgjihghb The real brilliance will just come from the fact that by using the genetic makeup from the patients own body this will guarantee that being where doctors treat blindness will not be enough for the patient, because what has been mentioned in these video responses says that with all of what has been mentioned just says that by having the eyes grown for the blind patient through the use of their own genetic makeup will prove that these people will not have a foreign organ fact!

[jkgjihghb]

There is a better answer than the prosthetic eyes to cure blindness, and that is by using the genetic makeup from the patient's own body to grow parts of the eye, or the full eye, which is going the natural route! Now it is right to say that with the fact that the RNA/DNA reconstruction is possible just says that there is already a cure for blindness being that your body knows its own genetic makeup! This says that there are way too many problems with any foreign body part fact!

[hyperverbal]

to see the rest with the Q&A search "Sheila Nirenberg - Q&A at TEDMED 2011"

[EMAMAMAM11]

she is extremely nervous

[cyclingzealot]

Sheila of course its cool!

[coRnflEks]

How basic! The fact that current prosthetics doesn't do this astounds me.

Really, using this tech, we should be able to produce a prosthetic that equals the human eye right now. Camera lenses and processing equipment are both already miniaturized enough for it to be plausible.

[TheGallows32]

but this only works for the types of blindness she introduced?> Or all blindness?

[jakk18]

Next stop Matrix?