Thanks to a high-tech procedure that involved the surgical implantation of a ‘bionic eye’, Roger Pontz, who was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa as a teenager, and has been almost completely blind for years, has regained enough of his eyesight to catch small glimpses of his surroundings, [s]Yahoo News[/s] reports. The [b]University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Centre[/b] has been the site of all four such US surgeries since [b]Food and Drug Administration[/b] approval. A fifth is scheduled. And researchers at the [b]University of New South Wales[/b] in Australia have for the first time used electrical pulses delivered from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, thereby successfully re-growing auditory nerves, reports [s]Medical Xpress[/s].
[link url=http://news.yahoo.com/michigan-man-among-1st-us-bionic-eye-070644446.html]Full Yahoo News report[/link]
[link url=http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-04-quality-bionic-ear-technology-gene.html]Full Medical Xpress report[/link]
[link url=http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/233/233ra54]Science Translational Medicine abstract[/link]