A team of 36 scientists have developed a mini device which could help the visually impaired to get their sight sense back. The research was called The Boston Retinal Implant Project and it was started by Dr. Joseph Rizzo III back in the 1980s. This bionic device is small enough to be implanted in the eye and it will send images to the brain through a connector the thickness of human hair.

This will be possible within a few years because the mini-technology has developed so much over the last 20 years when it was started this project. Dr. Rizzo says that the bionic retinal device acts like a light transmitter and for the moment it’s supposed to restore partial sight for the blind people, but not for all of them - this doesn’t work for people who are blind since they were born and for those who suffer from glaucoma.

Dr. Joseph Rizzo is a director of Neuro-Ophthalmology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and he teamed up with John Wyatt, a professor in electrical engineering and computer science department at V.A. MIT, in order to assemble the bionic device. According to Wyatt this is not an easy task: “Assembling this thing is really hard. It has got to be waterproof, vapor-proof and very tiny. It has got to last for 10 years or more in the eye.”

Another difficult task was to make the implant corrosion-proof so they signed a deal with EIC Corp, Norwood, a metal specialist company which must develop a titanium case in order to resist to saltwater. After they make the case corrosive-proof, they will implant it on an animal to test it.

For the future, Dr. Rizzo and his team hope that they will be able to help all the people who are visually impaired and to fully restore their sight so that they can have a normal life like the rest of us.