Eye camera

An Indiana University (IU) School of Optometry faculty member's company is building a diagnostic camera that could help save the vision of millions of people worldwide.

Dr Ann Elsner, director of IU's Borish Center for Ophthalmic Research, believes that screening to prevent one of the most devastating aspects of diabetes - vision loss and blindness from diabetic retinopathy - could be expanded to millions of underserved people if there was a more affordable diagnostic camera available.

Elsner and her team of researchers now say that they are in the final stages of developing such a system. 'Right now we have a bench-top prototype and we are serious about spinning it out,' Elsner said.

One of the challenges facing the team has been how to lower the cost of a small precision motor that scans light across the eye to make the image obtained much sharper. Bringing this cost in line with the other components is one of the final pieces in perfecting the patented laser scanning digital camera, which has been licensed to Elsner's start-up company, Aeon Imaging.