Japanese Scientists Create Artificial Eyeballs

MikeyMars writes: "CNN is reporting that Japanese scientists have grown artificial eyeballs [cnn.com] for tadpoles. This is the first time in the world something like this has been accomplished. 'Since the basics of body-making is common to that of human beings, I think this might help enable people to regain vision in the future,' Asashima was quoted as saying."

Comments

Now eat it

[Papa Legba]

Got to wonder how long until this ingredient makes it to Iron Chef....

tyrell & green to drop 'green'

[Anonymous Coward]

he say you blade runner / tell him i'm eating

"i just do eyes"

Oh great...

[11thangel]

Now my mom really CAN have eyes in the back of her head...

I guess,

[ImaLamer]

we won't need these!

Re:Growing an Eyeball.....

[PopeAlien]

Yes, but if they get this working can you imagine the great advantage it would give us? Why just the time saved alone would be astounding. Have you ever tried to put a pair of glasses or contact lenses on a tadpole or full grown frog? Its not easy.

Great step

[Henry V .009]

They actually managed to restore the sight of a tadpole which had had its eye surgically removed. The new eye reacted to light a week later. The tadpole was later disected, and the researchers confirmed that the optic nerve had reattached itself.

I am sceptical of this working for more developmentally mature organisms, especially in adult mammals, however. The nerve reattachment is tricky, and there is other stuff besides. Nerve cells need to be trained early in development. There have been experiments on kittens, where one eye is sown shut after birth, and then allowed to open normally several weeks later. The kittens are always blind in that eye. Even if a human adult had sight in childhood, and lost his eyes later, I wonder if the nerve cells could be retrained for newly grown eyes.

Re:Great step

[the_quark]

The issue with the kittens is that the parts of their brain that would be used for that eye get taken up by other functions. Research seems to show that, if you had eyesight during that critical learning phase, and then lost it later, the brain function is still there and you should be able to recover your sight.

As well, even if it were only useful in immature organisms, it could be marvelous for kids who are born blind at birth (obviously in cases where there is simple physical eye damage). Further, my brother has Retinitis Pigmentosa, which is a progressive eye disease where he loses his peripheral vision. He still has fine eyesight in the little field he has; he can read, but is very likely to trip over large objects because he can't see them in his peripheral vision. As he likes to say, "I'll see the penny on the other side of the room; I'll just trip over an elephant I didn't see on the way there." As I understand it, his problem is entirely in his eyeballs; if you could replace them, it would completely solve his problem (until RP showed up in them again 30 years from now, assuming that the cause isn't local to the eyeball).

I do have concerns as well that the eye would be able to hook up. But I think a good analogy might be the cochlear implants for deaf people. They hook up in adults, but the inputs are so different from the natural ones that most adults never learn to integrate the information. However, with a grown eyeball, that shouldn't be a problem - the information should be very similar to what they used to receive.

Still exciting stuff, if only from a biohacking standpoint...

Re:fake eyeballs

[Docrates]

I think you misunderstand this technology

It's not like they designed eyeballs from scratch. They took undiferentiated cells, which already had the information on how to become regular eyeballs, and then made them grow in that direction. Going from this to actually changing the ways those eyes work would be like engineering eyeballs from scratch. We're not even close to having the information or technology required to get there. Sure we know how eyes work, but changing genes to make them produce different results is NOT where we are right now.

Besides, if we had the ability to do this, I wouldn't consider it a misuse, although I can see why a lot of people would. Besides, all of the applications you mention are already available, cheap and common through different gadgets

Companion: Artificial Eyelids

[Digitalia]

Now that they've found a way of reproducing eyeballs, I suggest they begin work on artificial eyelids. Of course, why replicate nature's work exactly when we can always improve upon it considerably. Think if you could embed a layer light-emitting polymer within the flesh of the eyelid. Close your eyes, instant total recall as your portable computer displays the material inside your lids. Give the eyelids a feed from an infrared or UV camera, or simply one with zoom, and you suddenly have a rather innocuous system of super-vision. I'd pay for it so long as the lids looked natural. Miniatiurize electronics enough and this might be much easier than redesigning eyeballs from scratch to achieve this kind of goal.

There are problems beyond the tech, of course. First, I imagine that one might suffer nausea after prolonged use. Second, what would happen when millions of drivers began watching television on their eyelids while driving down the highway, squinting or holding one eye open so they can catch CNN?

Re:fake eyeballs

[sam_handelman]

what would stop
them from changing the spectrum of vision? perhaps adding uv or infrared to the normal visible light

Firstly, such an eye would have very few advantages on a microcamera - in terms of ease of use, it would be much simpler to hide tiny cameras in artificial cavities in someone's body than to do what you're proposing. Furthermore, the nervous system requirements to process the additional information simply are not there (infrared = red and your superspy can't see normal colors? Ooh, sign me up today.)

In order to do what you're proposing, you'd need to take a human eye and genetically modify it so that it could safely detect either infra-red or UV light, problems with that proposal include -

1) The human eye works by converting photons in the visible range into electrical potentials, which then produce nerve impulses. Photons are converted into electrical potentials by chromphores (big, organic molecules with many double bonds.) These chromophores can allready detect UV, but when they do they're destroyed. There's a membrane in the eye that exists purely to screen UV out. So, if you want to be able to see UV, you have to modify all the receptors that are allready in there to resist UV.

2) Genetic modification of these chromophores is exceedingly difficult, since they are not coded for by genes in and of themselves (they are produced by a host of other proteins.) So, you'd need to replace the dozen or so proteins that make a chromophore (in a particular cell, at a particular time) with a dozen or so genes/proteins that make some UV (or IR) sensitive chromophore. Then, you'd need (somehow) to alter all of the proteins that recognised the old chromophore so that they recognise the new chromophore, instead, so that it is properly inserted into the cellular architecture. This sort of technology is, optimistically, a century away, and has many more sinister potential uses than making an organic wide-spectrum camera.

3) It is extremely difficult, using only organic molecules, to distinguish between IR and physical heat. Unlike infrared light, which makes bonds bounce back and forth more quickly (= heat), or ultraviolet light, which cleaves bonds (in addition), visible light has the property of raising the electric potential of "pi" electrons; electrons which participate in a double bond but which are not strictly required for the bond to exist. Note that by this definition "visible" light does extend a little farther in each direction than what we can actually see.

After you've finished your epic feat of genetic and chemical engineering, you need to take your modified cells and insert them into embryos who have had there eyes removed and see if the modified cells still grow into eyeballs. I envy your budget.

Re:fake eyeballs

[Chasuk]

I think these prosthetic arms might be misused. The concept is great -- everyone can now have the ability to wave and and pick up litter and stuff -- but what would stop them from including built-in razors and anthrax infected needles? Perhaps adding a toothbrush adaptor or squirt gun extension... and then you would need the abiity to aim... slightly modified it would let you shoot acid at people, I think these plastic arms would be perfect weapons...

For those incapable of recognizing sarcasm, I will give you a clue by indicating that the above paragraph was NOT flamebait or troll, but merely expressing my frustration that anyone could be so fucking stupid as to moderate the parent post as "Insightful."

Great, but... the Japanese?

[phillymjs]

Will they make these things the proper size, or will everyone who has them look like they just stepped out of anime?

~Philly