Prof. Hyuck Choo
Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institutue of Technology
BSAC Postdoc 2008
May 10, 2016 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 490 Cory Hall
Host: Richard Muller
Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness with 60 million cases worldwide. An elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) level has been identified as a major risk factor and all glaucoma therapies are focused on lowering the IOP level. Moreover, recent large-scale studies sponsored by the National Institutes of Health have found that patient's IOPs fluctuate greatly over the course of a day. Continuous monitoring and aggressively lowering IOPs in a timely manner, especially in home environments, has proven to be very crucial for optimal management of the disease.
To address these technical needs, we are developing a nanophotonics-enhanced implantable pressure sensor with remote optical readout. The sensor is compact for easy implantation and operation requires only a broadband light source such as a tungsten light bulb. Bench testing has demonstrated that the sensor accurately tracks pressure from 0-40 mmHg, and we have been successfully monitoring in vivo IOPs of live rabbits for almost two years. The presentation will describe our efforts on IOP sensors, and I hope to leave you convinced that our approach of combining MEMS technologies with nanophotonics is providing solutions to some of the long-standing challenges in glaucoma management and allowing us to make important advances.
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