An End In Sight For Reading Glasses?

AUniversity of Leeds researcher is developing a new eye lens, made from the same material found in smartphone and TV screens, which could restore long-sightedness in older people.

As people age, their lenses lose flexibility and elasticity. This leads to a condition known as presbyopia, common in people over 45 years old, and can require optical aids, such as reading glasses.

“Using liquid crystals, which we probably know better as the material used in the screens of TVs and smartphones, lenses would adjust and focus automatically, depending on the eye muscles’ movement.” 

Using these liquid crystal-based materials, Devesh’s research is developing synthetic replacements for the diseased lens in the eye – a new generation of lenses and intra-ocular lens implants to rejuvenate sight.

Devesh Mistry, second year PhD student in the School of Physics and Astronomy

Devesh is currently researching and developing the lens in the lab and aims to have a prototype ready by the end of his doctorate in 2018.

Within a decade, the research could see the new lens being implanted into eyes in a quick and straightforward surgical procedure under local anaesthetic. 

Eye surgeons would make an incision in the cornea and use ultrasound to break down the old lens. The liquid crystal lens would then be inserted, restoring clear vision.

The lens could also have application in tackling cataracts – the clouding of natural lenses – which affect many people in later life and which can seriously affect vision. A common treatment is to remove and replace the natural lens. 

“Liquid crystals are a very under-rated phase of matter,” Devesh told The Times, “Everybody’s happy with solids, liquids and gases and the phases of matter, but liquid crystals lie between crystalline solids and liquids. They have an ordered structure like a crystal, but they can also flow like a liquid and respond to stimuli.”

Devesh is working in collaboration with the Eurolens Research at the University of Manchester and with UltraVision CLPL, a specialist contact lenses manufacturer headed up by two University of Leeds alumni. 

A prototype of an electrically switchable contact lens previously developed by the same group of collaborators. The lens makes use of liquid crystals, a material used in the vast majority of TV and smartphone screens

The first commercially-available liquid crystal lenses could be on sale between six and ten years’ time.