Scientists in the United States with expertise in optometry and artificial intelligence have won US$4.8 million (AU$7.2m) in funding to progress the emerging field of oculomics, which uses the eye as a lens on diseases that affect the whole body.
Professor Stephen A. Burns from the Indiana University School of Optometry, has been named a principal investigator on a three-year, $4.8 million award from the NIH Venture Program Oculomics Initiative.
Among the co-investigators on the award is A/Prof Eleftherios Garyfallidis, of intelligent systems engineering at the IU Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering.
The project will support the development of next-generation ophthalmoscopes — instruments to observe the interior of the eye — that can spot the early warning signs of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, sickle cell anemia and Alzheimer’s disease with a simple eye scan.
“This research is about using the eye as a window on health,” Prof Burns said, noting that the retina is the only directly observable part of the central nervous system. “We want to give healthcare providers the clearest view they can hope to get into the body, non-invasively.”
Prof Burns’ research on using the eye to detect disease goes back to the early 2000s, when he and colleagues at the IU School of Optometry pioneered applying adaptive optics scanning laser systems to the observation of the human eye. The field was originally developed by astronomers to eliminate the “twinkle” of stars — or distortions cause by the Earth’s atmosphere — in telescopes. The optics of the eye produce similar light distortions.
Using the technology developed at the school, the ophthalmoscope in Prof Burns’ lab can observe the back of the human eye at the resolution of two microns — a scale small enough to show the real-time movement of red blood cells inside the eye’s arteries and veins. (A single red blood cell is approximately eight microns in width.)
Prof Burns has used the technology to identify biomarkers for diabetes and hypertension in the walls of the eye’s blood vessels.
Project researchers from Northwestern and Mount Sinai have used similar technology to observe the cells both outside and inside these blood vessels, including spotting the crescent-shaped red blood cells found in sickle cell anemia. The Stanford researchers have used adaptive optics to improve observation of the eye’s photoreceptors.
With support from the NIH, the research teams will integrate their individual projects into a singular device, as well as apply state-of-the-art machine learning and AI. Additionally, they will explore the technology’s potential to spot the early signs of heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
“There’s growing evidence of a strong retinal vascular component to Alzheimer’s disease,” Prof Burns said. “You can currently see the signs with PET scans, which require large, multimillion-dollar instruments. If we can see the same signs with an eye scan, it’s a lot less invasive and a lot less costly.”
- This story was originally written by Kevin Fryling, Indiana University.
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