Headshot supplied by Allen Ho
From a new appointment for one of our previous Power Listers, to the limitations of cortical implants, these are the news stories and studies that caught our attention this week…
Allen at Alcon. Ophthalmologist Power Lister Allen Ho, Professor of Ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University and Director of Retina Research at Wills Eye Hospital, has been named as the Alcon Research Institute’s Executive Committee Chair. Ho will oversee the committees responsible for selecting Alcon’s Senior and Young Investigator Grant recipients, as well as chairing both Alcon’s annual Steven M. Podos Colloquium and their bi-annual Scientific Symposium. Link
CE approval for POAG laser. ViaLase, the California-based company behind the creation of FLigHT (femtosecond laser, image-guided, high-precision trabeculotomy), has announced that its ViaLase Laser has received CE (Conformité Européenne) Mark approval in the European Union (EU) for the treatment of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) patients. Link
Cortical implant limitations. New University of Washington research appears to challenge Elon Musk’s recent claim that Neuralink’s new cortical implant, Blindsight, could eventually exceed human vision. The study, published in Scientific Reports, created a computational model to predict how a high-resolution implant like Blindsight might reproduce human vision. The study’s simulations suggest that, even when technological advances are considered, “the perceptual quality of cortical prosthetic devices is likely to be limited by the neurophysiological organization of visual cortex, rather than engineering constraints.” Link
Metabolic signature of an aging retina. Investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying retinal aging, a new TVST study conducted metabolic profiling on retinal samples from mice categorized as “young” (two months old) and “aging” (14 months old). The Chinese team’s results identified 166 metabolites that were differentially expressed in the two age groups, indicating the potential for developing targeted interventions based on these novel metabolic profiles and biomarkers of aging retinas. Link
