Italian scientists working with futuristic technology in a variety of fields are joining forces to tackle the age-old problem of cataracts.
A new project using powerful telescopic lens technology brings together experts from astrophysics, nanotechnology, medicine and ophthalmology to produce a state-of-the-art lens for human eyes.
Cataracts, which are the leading form of blindness in the world, develop in the eye's crystalline lens.
The lens, like human-made lenses, refracts light to help focus but is prevented from working properly by cataracts, which cause a cloudiness to develop.
This can initially alter colours and sight, end eventually lead to vision loss and blindness if untreated.
Treatments for cataracts, which are widespread and have been around for decades, entail replacing the clouded crystalline lens with an implanted lens, known as an intraocular lens.
Originally made of an inflexible material, intraocular lenses have for some years been made of flexible materials, and some places even give patients the option of multifocal lenses, which correct both long and short-sightedness.
But the Italian project would take intraocular lenses to a whole new level, those involved say.
A joint statement by the Italian firm Sifi, the National Astrophysics Institute (INAF) and Catania University's Laboratory for Molecular Surfaces and Nanotechnologies explains:
"Artificial substitutes for the crystalline lens currently in use are made with materials, forms and technologies that are unable to fully reproduce the entire biological mechanism".
The project, named Waterfall, would tap the technology used to make the most powerful telescopes in the world, resulting in a futuristic lens capable of multiple functions.
In addition to vision correction, the lens would protect the eye from harmful UV damage caused by the sun's rays, and would even be able to release controlled quantities of drugs directly into the eye.
The 12-million-euro project, three quarters of which funded by the Italian research ministry, is expected to take three years to complete but approval for the first series of tests will be granted in coming months.
Some 500,000 cataracts operations using existing techniques are carried out each year in Italy.
