After living for decades with the effects of retinitis pigmentosa, Dianne Ashworth, Murray Rowland and Maurice Skehan are now helping researchers as they design, build and test a bionic eye prototype.

Dianne received the world’s first 24-electrode pre-bionic eye in July 2012, with Murray and Maurice also receiving the device later that year. All three underwent surgery at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital with specialist eye surgeon Dr Penny Allen, as part of ground-breaking research with our partners the Centre for Eye Research (CERA), Bionic Vision Australia (BVA) and the Bionics Institute.

The Eye and Ear and CERA surgical team, including ENT surgeon Dr Robert Briggs, worked together with engineers and clinicians to ensure the device met the challenges of implantation into the suprachoroidal space at the back of the eye. The device, made of the same materials as the Cochlear implant, has enabled Dianne, Murray and Maurice to experience a degree of vision not experienced in decades.

Dianne now in her early 50s says, “I have retinitis pigmentosa that was diagnosed in 1984, at that stage I was 24 or 25 and my vision just got narrower and narrower and I have been completely blind since my early 30s.

“The trial was amazing. I tried to go in not thinking about what to expect. I went in with a really open, clear mind and I was very calm on that day because of that. When I did see something I thought that’s something in my eyes that’s being controlled and it was absolutely amazing.
“I was really happy for the researchers that day as well, because of all the work they had done and to get a result I knew they must be over the moon,” Dianne says.

Sixty-three year-old Maurice was also born with RP and had only 10 per cent vision from birth, which gradually deteriorated until he experienced a major drop 18 years ago.
“A couple of years ago I could see across the road and make out the depth of colour, now I can’t see that. I’ve lost all crispness and definition from the light.”
“I remember Professor [Gerard] Crock saying to me, ‘You’ll see before you die’ and I said ‘Yeah I reckon I’ll walk on the moon too!’ that was 20 years ago.”
“I’m very honoured to be selected for a position [in the study]. I wasn’t necessarily looking to improve my own vision but to help develop the technology. Anything that comes out for me is a bonus, but I entered into this knowing that there may not be any bonus at all; I wanted to help get it moving,” Maurice says.

Like Dianne and Maurice, 50 year-old Murray was diagnosed with RP at a young age and has spent most of his life without vision.

“I was first diagnosed in 1979, at the age of 17. I continued to umpire football after I was first diagnosed for seven weeks after and I live life the best I can.”
“I was very honoured to be chosen out of a few hundred people, [I felt] excited, nervous, exhilarated. I wanted to help my fellow blind person and the research – without research we don’t go anywhere and without trial participants, the research doesn’t go anywhere.
“But also I don’t know the outcome and that excites me. I’ve experienced flashes of light and circles of light; I’ve seen a back to front L and the letter J, a back to front banana. Every week is an adventure and if you’ve had a bad week at work Fridays are the highlight, when I come for my check-up,” Murray says.

The early prototype bionic eye incorporates a retinal implant with 24 electrodes. A small lead wire extends from the back of the eye to a connector behind the ear. An external system is connected to this unit in the laboratory, allowing researchers to stimulate the implant in a controlled manner in order to study visual sensations (called ‘phosphenes’) that are evoked by electrical stimulation. Patient feedback allows researchers to develop a more sophisticated vision processor and stimulation techniques so that clearer images can be built using flashes of light.

Researchers hope to secure further funding for the project so development and patient testing can commence with the next generation of devices.