Bionic Lens - should we wait for this "transformative" lens?

The Bionic Lens is an intra-ocular lens, a group of lenses which are surgically inserted into a patient’s eye, usually after cataract removal, to restore sight.   Now patented world-wide, the Bionic Lens is designed to replace the eye’s natural lens, before cataract development, a refractive procedure currently known as refractive lens exchange (RLE). By imparting customized modifications to each lens, not just the prescription but ‘higher order aberrations’ can be corrected, allowing the full potential of a healthy visual system to be realized.

Media interest has understandably focused on the superior distance vision this lens promises. However, the true transformation will lay in the ability to successfully allow dynamic changes in vision from “optical infinity to 1 inch away in less than ¼ sec”, as he purports. This is where, to date, any other procedure has fallen short of even approaching this claim. In May, Dr. Webb and his Harvard appointed, medical advisory team will present initial animal study results at a conference of cataract and refractive surgeons in New Orleans. What will certainly spark greater interest is, a demonstration of how the Bionic lens can be successfully folded and injected into the eye via a small, suture-less incision, an accomplishment which was 8 years in the making. To date, Dr Webb remains optimistic that in Canada and several other interested countries, approval for some level of use may occur in 2017

Over the last 25 years my partners and I have observed the scientific path of this optometrist/researcher as well as the evolution and passage of numerous refractive procedures. It is with great interest that we await to see where these 2 vectors shall ultimately intersect…in the future of vision

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