Shenzhen Advanced Institute develops structured color contact lens sensor for eye disease warning

[ Instrument Network Instrument R & D ] Recently, Du Xuemin, a researcher at the Nano Regulation and Control Center of the Institute of Medical Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed a structural color contact lens sensor that is sensitive to humidity and pressure signals. Indicators of high-risk and ocular hypertension patients provide new ideas for early detection and treatment of related ophthalmic diseases. Related research results were published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry B under the title of Structural Colour Contact Lens Sensor for Point-of-Care Ophthalmic Health Monitoring. Du Xuemin is the corresponding author of the dissertation, Wang Yunlong and Zhao Qilong are the co-first authors, and Shenzhen Advanced Institute is the communication unit.

Ophthalmic health is an important health issue of global concern. Early detection, early intervention, and early treatment of ophthalmic diseases are effective solutions to avoid severe visual impairment, especially the real-time monitoring of important ophthalmic physiological and pathological indicators such as tear secretion and intraocular pressure. For dry eye, high intraocular pressure, and glaucoma, etc. Early diagnosis of ophthalmic diseases is of great significance. However, traditional methods for detecting tear secretion, intraocular pressure, and other indicators often require professionals to complete through professional means or with the help of complex equipment. At present, it is difficult to achieve real-time monitoring of relevant physiological and pathological indicators, which may lead to disease deterioration and affect vision. Therefore, it is very important and significant to develop a new strategy that can be used for real-time monitoring of important physiological and pathological indicators of the eye.

In order to realize the real-time monitoring of important physiological and pathological indicators such as tear secretion and intraocular pressure, Du Xuemin's team based on the previous research on responsive structural color materials (Adv. Funct. Mater. 2020, 1909202; Matter 2019, 1, 626; ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2017, 9, 38117; J. Mater. Chem. C, 2015, 3, 3542), successfully developed a structural color contact lens sensor with humidity and pressure response for dry eye and high intraocular pressure Visual warning of ophthalmological diseases such as dysentery. Structural color due to the need to add no chemical pigments or dyes, only through periodic micro-nano structure and light, you can achieve bright, bright and stable colors, which is unique in the construction of contact lens sensors to monitor ophthalmic physiological and pathological indicators in real time Advantage. The research team successfully designed the structured color contact lenses by designing this structured color into contact lenses consistent with the commercialized materials, and only by adjusting the micro-nano structure cycle, the bright colors such as red, green, and blue can be obtained. glasses. It is further verified through in vitro experiments and animal experiments that this type of structured color contact lens has both ideal biocompatibility and very good wearing comfort. It is worth emphasizing that the micro-nano periodic structure of the structure-colored contact lens sensor constructed by the research team can trigger changes with changes in water content or slight pressure, which in turn can cause visible changes in color to the naked eye. On this basis, the research team constructed an in vitro dry eye model and ocular hypertension model, and found that the contact lens sensor placed under the normal eye environment was invisible under the dry eye model and ocular hypertension model. The reflection spectrum of the glasses sensor will undergo a significant blue shift. In particular, the contact lens sensor with an initial color of red changes from visible red to blue after being placed in the dry eye model for 25 minutes, while the color of the contact lens sensor placed under the normal eye model does not change.

Due to their excellent biological safety and unique optical characteristics, this type of structured color contact lenses without the need to add chemical pigments and dyes is expected to provide new technologies for the rapidly growing market for beautiful pupils. In addition, with the sensing characteristics of this structured color contact lens, it is expected to realize real-time monitoring of physiological and pathological indicators such as tear secretion and intraocular pressure through visible color changes of the naked eye, and then to achieve ophthalmic diseases such as dry eye and high intraocular pressure Warning, in the future, you can also load related drugs in contact lenses to achieve eye health and related disease treatment. This type of integrated structural color material strategy is expected to provide new ideas for the development and diagnosis of new generations of portable wearable physiological monitoring devices. The research team has been granted a number of invention patents in related technologies.

The above research work has been funded by science and technology projects of the National Key Research and Development Plan (2017YFA0701303), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21404116), Guangdong Province, and Shenzhen.