An elite professional team in the field of ocular health has been concentrated, since its opening a few months ago, at the Oftalvist Eye Clinic in Barcelona. At the head of the medical direction is Dr. Jeroni Nadal, one of the world’s leading experts in vitreoretinal surgery, immersed in “very exciting” technologies that are already revolutionizing the sector and will completely transform it in the immediate future.
“In about three years,” Nadal estimates, they will allow many patients who suffer from intractable eye diseases today to have alternatives to recover their vision. They will be applicable to a very high percentage of ophthalmological ailments, including retinitis pigmentosa, atrophic macular degeneration or degenerative myopia at the posterior pole level.
Many patients who suffer from untreatable eye diseases will be able to recover their vision with other alternatives.
This enormous leap forward occurs, explains the doctor, “through a triple therapeutic route: gene therapy, cell therapy and artificial vision.” Genetic is based on genetic reprogramming, on the modification of the gene that is at the origin of the dysfunction, while in the case of regenerative, healthy pluripotent cells are used that replace the degenerated ones, thus restoring damaged tissues.
But the most promising is probably computer vision. In 2013, Nadal became the first specialist in Spain to perform implant surgery using Second Sight’s Argus II retinal implant, a ‘bionic eye’ that provides electrical stimulation of the retina and allowed blind people to identify shapes and objects. Since then, technology has advanced by leaps and bounds: “To make an analogy, I would say that it is as if we had gone from black and white television to color television in these ten years”
Nadal was the first specialist in Spain to carry out implant surgery, using a ‘bionic eye’ that allows blind people to identify shapes and objects.
Currently, the doctor leads, together with engineer Jose Antonio Garrido from ICN2, the Adaptive Retinal Implant Technology for Vision Restoration (i-Vision) project, one of the most prominent in the world. The initiative has the Barraquer Foundation in cooperation with the UAB and four institutes: the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, the Institute of Photonic Sciences, the Institute of High Energy Physics and the Paris Vision Institute
To achieve artificial vision, he explains, “we use a very effective nanology, neurostimulators based on graphene, a practically pure carbon that has a high conductivity speed, as a substitute for damaged retinal cells.” After making a small incision at the scleral level of the eye, a device is placed with more than 3,500 stimulators, 10% of which are actually receptors, that is, they analyze conductivity and resistance and adjust all the parameters to multiply their effectiveness
“We use a very effective nanology, graphene-based neurostimulators, a practically pure carbon that has a high conductivity speed.”
Jeroni NadalExpert in vitreoretinal surgery
The device, in short, “learns by itself.” Through glasses, whose frame has a microcamera that captures the images, they are sent by radio waves to the microchip, restoring the patient’s sight.
This technique can be applied to multiple ophthalmological problems, but not all. According to Nadal, “patients who have optic nerve problems and those who are not able to see light” would be ruled out. For these, however, there are also solutions on the way. “There are technologies similar to ours, also with graphene devices, that go directly to the occipital area of the brain.
More than 18,000 retinal surgeries
Jeroni Nadal is one of the world’s leading experts in vitreoretinal surgery. Among many other milestones in his career, he was the first to implement an artificial vision device in Spain and the first in the world to rehabilitate a deaf-blind patient (Uscher syndrome) with an Argus artificial vision device. Medical director of the brand new Oftalvist Eye Clinic in Barcelona, he has performed more than 18,000 retinal surgeries since 1992. Previously, he was deputy medical director of the Barraquer Ophthalmology Center.
We must understand that we do not see with our eyes, but through them. The eye captures the photons and sends them to the brain, which interprets this stimulus. Therefore, it is the brain that sees and generates vision. This is what this new technology is doing, which allows the ocular defect to be bypassed and electrical signals sent directly to the brain through the optic nerve,” he points out.
Investment, essential
Spain, the doctor points out, is among the countries with the highest quality of care and technique in ophthalmological pathology. “Some countries allocate a lot of economic resources to research, but in our country this social or political awareness does not exist.”
In this sense, he highlights that all the advances that i-Vision represents have been made thanks to the financial support of CaixaBank, and points out that, naturally, future investment will be decisive so that patients can have access to these new techniques as soon as possible. Without a doubt, many things will change
Address of the Oftalvist clinic in Barcelona: Oftalvist Barcelona (HLA International – 4th floor). C/Angli, 11
