Very curious why you'd take this approach over something like the Boston Keratoprosthesis (<a href="https://eyewiki.org/Boston_Type_1_Keratoprosthesis" rel="nofollow">https://eyewiki.org/Boston_Type_1_Keratoprosthesis</a>). With a history of cornea rejection, mine has been stable for almost 16 years.
>It involves removing a patient's tooth, usually the canine, installing a plastic optical lens inside it, and then implanting the whole thing into the eye.<p>How fitting that the material usually comes from eyeteeth!
Had to <i>bite</i> and check this out after disbelief from the headline that such a thing was going on. Pretty wacky. But also amazing that some doc/researcher out there ran with a hunch to figure out if this was an option to help some people improve their lives. Sci-fi vibes but appreciate the motive.
This is the first I'd heard of this, and I did some poking around, and came to the conclusion that this surgery is ~mostly obsolete --- which is an answer (for me) to the question of "don't they have a better substance to use as a lens substrate than tooth?"
I wonder how this surgery was originally 1) invented 2) proposed to colleagues.<p>"Hey peeps, I've been bouncing around this idea lately. So you know how Mrs Smith in room 230 has no eyesight left? Well one of her teeth came off when she fell last night, and I started thinking.."
One thing I don't understand is how the surgeon ensures the lens is positioned correctly. We're talking about a rigid lens that can no longer be controlled via muscles, right? Doesn't any misalignment mean you get a fuzzy image at best? And even if you <i>can</i> get a sharp image for some given, fixed distance, you still can't control whether to focus on near things or far things when you look, right??
It's nothing like as as grotesque as the headline makes it sound. Worth reading.<p>Suggested headline: "Surgery implants tooth material in eye as scaffolding for lens" or something like that?
"An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth: vote for me & I'll set U free!" <a href="https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=5HjUxggPd6E&si=LquS4OiJI-ID781Y" rel="nofollow">https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=5HjUxggPd6E&si=LquS4OiJI-I...</a><p>[English translation: <a href="https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=XX2GD7q7-wA&si=2ZuxnqxYxoTI0foS" rel="nofollow">https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=XX2GD7q7-wA&si=2ZuxnqxYxoT...</a>]
So these sciency folks have managed to move tooth from the mouth to the eyes but still want to pluck some teeth off to move around some other teeth parked wrongly; and then expect me to have something installed forever to keep them in place, even after all that planned uprooting. Huh.
As someone with Type 2 diabetes, I am eternally grateful for everyone who works on future eye surgery advancements. Especially for people who work in tech, it's nearly a death sentence.
At first I was curious if they'd included any pictures of what it actually looks like, but when I saw the pictures I definitely came to doubt my decision. So for the feint of heart, beware.
/? eye transplant <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?q=eye+transplant" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?q=eye+transplant</a><p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:ZlcYhwhYqiUJ:scholar.google.com/&scioq=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,43" rel="nofollow">https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:ZlcYhwhYqiUJ:sc...</a><p>From "Clinical and Scientific Considerations for Whole Eye Transplantation: An Ophthalmologist's Perspective" (2025) <a href="https://tvst.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2802568" rel="nofollow">https://tvst.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2802568</a> :<p>> <i>Whereas advances in gene therapy, neurotrophic factor administration, and electric field stimulation have shown promise in preclinical optic nerve crush injury models, researchers have yet to demonstrate efficacy in optic nerve transection models—a model that more closely mimics WET. Moreover, directing long-distance axon growth past the optic chiasm is still challenging and has only been shown by a handful of approaches. [5–8]</i><p>> <i>Another consideration is that even if RGC axons could jump across the severed nerve ending, it would be impossible to guarantee maintenance of the retinal-cortical map. For example, if the left eye were shifted clockwise during nerve coaptation, RGCs in the superior-nasal quadrant of donor retinas would end up synapsing with superior-temporal neurons in the host's geniculate nucleus. This limitation also plagues RGC-specific transplantation approaches; its effect on vision restoration is unknown.</i><p>"Combined Whole Eye and Face Transplant: Microsurgical Strategy and 1-Year Clinical Course" (2024)
<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39250113/" rel="nofollow">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39250113/</a> :<p>> Abstract: [...] <i>Serial electroretinography confirmed retinal responses to light in the transplanted eye. Using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging, the integrity of the transplanted visual pathways and potential occipital cortical response to light stimulation of the transplanted eye was demonstrated. At 1 year post transplant (postoperative day 366), there was no perception of light in the transplanted eye.</i><p>"Technical Feasibility of Whole-eye Vascular Composite Allotransplantation: A Systematic Review" (2023) <a href="https://journals.lww.com/prsgo/fulltext/2023/04000/Technical_Feasibility_of_Whole_eye_Vascular.52.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://journals.lww.com/prsgo/fulltext/2023/04000/Technical...</a> :<p>> <i>With nervous coaptation, 82.9% of retinas had positive electroretinogram signals after surgery, indicating functional retinal cells after transplantation. Results on optic nerve function were inconclusive. Ocular-motor functionality was rarely addressed.</i><p>How to target NGF(s) to the optic nerve?<p>Magnets? RF convergence?<p>How to resect allotransplant and allograft optic nerve tissue?<p>How to stimulate neuronal growth in general?<p>Near-infrared stimulates neuronal growth and also there's red light therapy.<p>Nanotransfection stimulates tissue growth by in-vivo stroma reprogramming.<p>How to understand the optic nerve portion of the connectome?<p>The Visual and Auditory cortices are observed to be hierarchical.<p>Near-field imaging of [optic] nerves better than standard VEP Visual Evoked Potential tests would enable optimization of [optic nerve] transection.<p>VEP: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoked_potential#Visual_evoked_potential" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoked_potential#Visual_evoked...</a><p>Ophthalmologic science is important because - while it's possible to fight oxidation and aging - our eyes go.<p>Upper-atmospheric radiation is terrible on eyes. This could be a job for space medicine, and pilots.<p>Accomodating IOLs that resist UV damage better than natural tissue: Ocumetics<p>From "Portable low-field MRI scanners could revolutionize medical imaging" (2023) <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34990738">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34990738</a> :<p>> <i>Is MRI-level neuroimaging possible with just NIRS Near-Infrared Spectroscopy?</i><p>From "Language models can explain neurons in language models"
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35886145">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35886145</a> :<p>> <i>So, to run the same [fMRI, NIRS,] stimulus response activation observation/burn-in again weeks or months later with the same subjects is likely necessary given</i> Representational drift.<p>"Reversible optical data storage below the diffraction limit (2023)" [<i>at cryogenic temperatures</i>]
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38528844">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38528844</a> :<p>> <i>[...] have successfully demonstrated that a beam of light can not only be confined to a spot that is</i> 50 times smaller than its own wavelength <i>but also “in a first of its kind” the spot can be moved by minuscule amounts at the point where the light is confined.<p>Optical tweezers operating below the Abbe diffraction limit are probably of use in resecting neurovascular tissue in the optic nerve (the retina and visual cortex)?<p>"Real-space nanophotonic field manipulation using non-perturbative light–matter coupling" (2023)
<a href="https://opg.optica.org/optica/fulltext.cfm?uri=optica-10-1-11&id=524596" rel="nofollow">https://opg.optica.org/optica/fulltext.cfm?uri=optica-10-1-1...</a> :<p>> </i>"One can write, erase, and rewrite an infinite number of times,"*