Australia’s Monash Vision Group (MVG) has moved a step closer to clinical trials of its Bionic Eye, thanks to donations from two business leaders — Dr Marc Besen and Monash University Chancellor Alan Finkel, who have each donated $1 million to the project.

With an additional commitment of $1 million from Monash University, these donations will cover critical development costs and should enable the first human trials to take place next year. Over 50,000 people in Australia are considered clinically blind; the global number exceeds 160 million.

The Bionic Eye combines ‘state of the art’ digital and biomedical technology with consumer-friendly glasses. A digital camera embedded in the glasses captures images from the user’s environment.

A vision processor extracts the most useful features from these images and a wireless transmitter presents this information to a series of tiles that are implanted at the back of the brain. Each tile, through hair-thin electrodes, then stimulates the visual cortex of the brain to produce patterns of light. Over time, the user learns to interpret these patterns as visual images.

Leaders in engineering, physiology, vision sciences, neuro-surgery, ophthalmology and industrial design are involved in the project.

This is the first time the project has received philanthropic support. Since it was set up almost five years ago, MVG has attracted funding worth $25 million. Most of it has come from the government through the Australian Research Council’s Special Research Initiative in Bionic Vision Science and Technology and Monash University.