Eye kNOw
Envisioning the future of glaucoma treatment
Imagine waking up one day and finding out your vision is deteriorating...
And you're helpless to stop it.
This is what will happen if you get GLAUCOMA.
Glaucoma is now the first leading cause of irreversible blindness, which affects over 80 million people worldwide. It’s usually caused by a build-up of aqueous humour inside the eye, which leads to a high intraocular pressure (IOP).
Due to the difficulty of diagnosis in early stage, the disease is known as the silent killer of eyes.
The current treatment for glaucoma are eye drops. However, it can’t effectively decrease IOP since IOP fluctuates constantly, we can’t predict when will the IOP spikes.
To fight against GLAUCOMA
This year NCKU Tainan develops
Eye kNOw
Eye Screen
Eye kNOw
Eye kNOw is a pair of contact lenses with our engineered bacteria, capable of releasing nitric oxide to relax the smooth muscle in the eyes.
Our modified contact lenses have a compartment that is filled with water, IPTG, L-Arginine, and our engineered bacteria. When IOP increases, it will increase IPTG concentration due to the water outflow. And induce our engineered bacteria to produce NOS to convert L-Arginine into nitric oxide, thus lower the IOP.
NOS
An enzyme to convert L-Arginine into nitric oxide.
IPTG
An Inducer to control NOS expression.
L-Arginine
A precusor of nitric oxide.
Eye Screen
We develop Eye Screen, a portable and affordable device providing real-time IOP measurement through ultrasound.