{"id":172901,"date":"2026-04-15T10:38:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T14:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=172901"},"modified":"2026-04-15T10:38:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T14:38:29","slug":"a-retinal-prosthesis-might-restore-sight-for-millions-with-age-related-macular-degeneration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2026\/04\/15\/a-retinal-prosthesis-might-restore-sight-for-millions-with-age-related-macular-degeneration\/","title":{"rendered":"A Retinal Prosthesis Might Restore Sight for Millions with Age-Related Macular Degeneration"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4><strong>Yang Research Group&#8217;s technology offers hope to people with an incurable disease that\u2019s one of the leading causes of blindness<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2026\/retinal-prosthesis-age-related-macular-degeneration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Andrew Thurston<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"is-style-default\">Colors start dimming. Reading becomes tougher. Then, as age-related macular degeneration progresses, patients&#8217; central vision may turn blurry, or fade altogether.<\/p>\n<p class=\"is-style-default\">Eventually, the eye disease could leave people legally blind. Treatments can slow the deterioration, but for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reviewofoptometry.com\/article\/global-prevalence-of-amd-poses-challenge-for-health-care-systems\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">nearly 200 million people globally<\/a> with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), there\u2019s no cure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"is-style-default\">In her lab at Boston University, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/profile\/chen-yang\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Professor Chen Yang<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ECE<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/chemistry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chemistry<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/mse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MSE<\/a>) is testing and refining a flexible retinal prosthesis that she hopes could one day be implanted in the eye to help restore sight in people with severe AMD and a range of other retinal degenerative diseases. Using a thin, soft polymer- and nanocarbon-based film, the prosthesis turns light into ultrasound to stimulate the healthy parts of the eye undamaged by disease.<\/p>\n<p class=\"is-style-default\">\u201cLost vision has a huge impact on quality of life,\u201d says Yang. \u201cThere is a critical need for so many patients\u2014they need an alternative solution.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Read the full story at BU&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2026\/retinal-prosthesis-age-related-macular-degeneration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Brink<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n<p><em>Photo by Jackie Ricciardi<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The technology offers hope to people with an incurable disease that\u2019s one of the leading causes of blindness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2662,"featured_media":172910,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,257,1062,907,1053,909],"tags":[464,781],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172901"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172901"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172913,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172901\/revisions\/172913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}