Improving quality of life in patients with end-stage age-related macular degeneration: focus on miniature ocular implants

Low vision devices in the past have been mainly extraocular. There are now four new devices in different stages of development and implementation that are currently available. Three of them, the Implantable Miniature Telescope (IMT, VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies, Saratoga, CA), Intraocular Lens for Visually Impaired People (IOL-VIP, IOL-VIP System, Soleko, Pontecorvo, Italy), and Lipschitz Mirror Implant (LMI, Optolight Vision Technology, Herzlia, Israel) are implanted into the anterior segment while the Argus II (Second Sight Medical Products, Sylmar, CA) is implanted into the posterior segment. The goal of these devices is to increase the patient quality of life which has been measured by Visual Functioning Questionnaire (VFQ) scales. The IMT is the only device that has been shown to increase the VFQ score by seven points at 6 months compared to baseline. It is the only FDA-approved device in the US while the Argus has been approved in Europe. Each of these prosthetics has potential benefits for patients

An external control unit implemented for stimulator ASIC testing

This paper presents the design and development of an external control unit (ECU) for a stimulator ASIC testing purposes. The ECU consists of a graphical user interface (GUI) from the PC, a data transceiver and a power transmitter. The GUI was developed using MATLAB for stimulation data setup. The data transceiver was designed using hardware description language (HDL) Verilog code and was implemented in a Virtex-II Pro FPGA board. The overall stimulator ASIC design architecture and its operation for an epiretinal implant application are briefly explained to correlate with the ECU’s design requirements. The flexible multichannel stimulator ASIC was successfully fabricated in a 0.35μm AMS HVCMOS technology. Conducted simulation and measurement results on stimulation waveform generation, supply voltage compliance and external control of supply voltage adaptation validate the functionality of the designed ECU and the stimulator ASIC.Keywords: external control unit; data transceiver; stimulator ASIC; retinal prosthesis; epiretinal implant; stimulation waveform; Manchester data; voltage compliance

CMOS-Based Peptide Arrays

CMOS - Based Peptide Arrays Peptide arrays are an important tool in proteomics and peptidomics, allowing a large number of peptides to be synthesized on a common support and exposed to a solution of target molecules in parallel. In particle-based synthesis, the amino acids for in situ synthesis of peptides are transported to synthesis loci in solid particles and released upon melting, allowing an increase in density over liquid-based systems. This thesis focuses on the development of application-specific high voltage integrated circuits for electrostatic deposition of charged amino acid particles and their integration into a combinatorial peptide synthesis system. Transfer of amino acid particles from the aerosol to synthesis loci on the chip surface was investigated for a pixel pitch between 45 µm and 100 µm, and compatibility between the chips, particle transfer and the poly(ethylene glycol)methacrylate - based surface modifi¬cations was established. The first combinatorial syntheses on CMOS chips were performed with over 16,000 distinct synthesis sites per chip, at a density of 10,000 spots per cm2, which is a 25-fold increase over the 400 spots per cm2 currently available on laser-printed glass slides. For FLAG and HA peptide epitopes, immonostaining showed regular spots of comparable signal intensity over the whole chip area