well I’m a vision scientist and what I
do is I investigate how the eye works
and I develop technologies provision
well scientists without Sciences is the
aspiration and if you felt waste get the
answer and I’m pretty sure that every
one of you have an inner scientist
that’s question I’m probably you ask
many questions
you got the Stars mystery night right
like a question how many stars are they
right they are why they are and we see
better
astronomers have figure out ways they
have they have a fella like telescope
and they have a couple this telescope
adaptive oh that active object they
protect a laser beam through the apples
and then they measure the degrading
effects of the atmospheric turbulence
Peter starts better I investigate the
eye and the eye is probably the most
amazing optical instrument that it can
imagine in fact what we do we translate
move forward these technologies that
have been developed for astronomy to the
investigation of the eye yeah as I said
is composed Islands past hernia and the
crystalline limbs and those lenses
predict the images of the outside world
on the retina where the photoreceptors
capture the light and convert that into
electrical signals that travel all the
way to the brain but the eye as
fascinating as it is it’s not perfect
the images that are predicted by the
lenses get brewery and and they’re not
not absolutely perfect but we can
measure these imperfections and in fact
we were using his technology
for astronomy this Parma shock wave
sensor and translated that into the eye
and we do something similar with
astronomers dead telescopes nine array
of light to the back of the eye and we
analyzed the wave of light that emerges
through the eye and measure this
imperfection the most well-known
imperfections in the IR refractive
errors in a perfect die in an electric
eye images are projected on the retina
however in for example at myopic eye a
nearsighted eye the images are projected
in front of the retina and we need
glasses
we need spectacles to bring that image
to the regular plane spectacles have
been used for centuries this is a
painting by Rico with his Cardinal
wearing glasses and celebrities wear
glasses as well in fact lots of people
in the world wear glasses myopia affects
30% of the population in Western
countries and actually more than 90% in
some areas in the world like Hong Kong
or Singapore but in fact there are many
people blind in the world because of the
lack of our Corrections there we shall
improve menu – uncorrected refractive
errors that well hearth organisation has
measured estimated to be about 153
million blind people because of the lack
of a correction why this happens well
what we can say is that we can actually
improve quality of light by a lot by
putting someone’s glasses and eyeglasses
are not the bottle a my glasses can be
as cheap as four dollars it’s probably
the one cost effective health pro
technology however the reason why there
are so many people and correct it is
because of the lack of specialists Comet
wrists are not as many as they should be
in the US or in Europe there is one of
comet wrists every six thousand people
however you go to real India there is
one of comma trees every 250,000 people
even less in in Africa so when the iCard
special is coming this path
probably once a year there are these
long lines to the form yes to get the
prescription because
you need an apologist that puts lenses
and measure prescriptions for for some
time or you need expensive technology so
there is a recognized need for getting
these technologies that are affordable
and are accurate you get the
prescription without the need of a
specialists and this is what we did in
our lab we brought these technologies
these big technologies sitting on the
table with lasers lenses inches
something very small something
affordable that at the click of the
bottom can get you a prescription so
bringing accurate photo refraction
anywhere this is an example of a
subpoena company that was formed between
MIT and CSI see in in Madrid and what is
more important is that these
technologies now be brought to the
patients and the people in need is now
being used in that in India to get these
prescriptions and and get these peoples
glasses we explore the eye very much as
astronomers explore planets the
astronomers quantify the topography for
example of planets this is a an image by
NASA exploring the planet Mercury well
we explore the topography of these
lenses in the I like the cornea the
shapes of the crystalline lenses and
develop these technologies that allow us
for example to guide Patrick surgery we
can implant an intraocular lens and with
these are quantitative technologies we
can select the intraocular lens that is
best adapted to the anatomy of an eye
so we saw these technologies used as
astronomers that allows to measure the
imperfections and the relation imposed
by the atmosphere
well astronomers have developed this
instrumentation to actually correct the
aberrations the imperfections of the
atmospheric turbulence we are using the
same technology to correct the
aberrations of the eye for example
moving from these big systems into
something very small something that can
be worried in the eye to simulate a
particular correction so those
instruments that look forward from
astronomy to optical instruments in the
lab can now be worn by a patient they
can actually see the world through a
correction that is going to be implanted
in their eye even than the experience of
a correction before actually having a
surgery
and again this is another example of
technology being moved forward from
astronomy to the lab and now to the
clinic and this is a spin-off company
that was created in my lab two years ago
to bring this technology to the patients
we not only get inspiration from
astronomy we also get inspiration from
nature for example we look at some
animal eyes like geckos to get inspired
to create multifocal Corrections
it’s our Corrections that protect you
simultaneous image an image that is
focused for fire and near at the same
time to create for your press my opium
eventually these designs can be get into
a patient’s eye but we also get
inspiration from the crystal lens the
crystalline lens of a young eye has the
ability to accommodate to focus near and
far and this is the technology that we
have used and developed to image these
are accommodating crystalline lens we
can look at the structure of the
crystalline lens and get a lot of
information that is useful to create new
lenses to get inspired to get new
Corrections this will be the future of
our Corrections for presbyopia right now
Corrections of pres bio parent static
one the dynamic correction for near and
far we are getting inspired by the
accommodating nature of the crystalline
lens design these lenses they get
reshaped upon an accommodationist errors
so I hope next time you see the start
you can imagine how we can use light and
optics to improve vision and how these
technologies that once started in
astronomy are now moving forward to
increase eye care access to patients in
need to provide them with glasses and
they’re now being used to improve
cataract surgery surgery that is
performed 22 million surgeries per year
or actually restore visual function so I
hope you can imagine how we can use
light to see the light thank you for
your attention [Applause]