Today, 6 million Americans are blind or suffer severe visual impairment due to diseases that destroy the retina, according to Gianluca Lazzi, associate professor of electrical engineering.

By the year 2020, that number is projected to double — but a team of researchers is aligning its specialized knowledge to create an artificial retina that will give sight to the blind. Lazzi is one of the members of the specialized research team of the artificial retina project.

Within six years, the successful and unique collaboration of nine institutions, including five national laboratories and researchers, will have restored as much vision as possible to improve the blinds’ quality of life.

Lazzi started working on the artificial retina in 1999.

“It has been progressing over the years of course and now we are definitely getting closer to having something working,” Lazzi said.

The artificial retina project, sponsored by the Department of Energy, is intended to cure vision of two diseases: Retinis Pigmentosa and Age Macular Degeneration.

Retinis Pigmentosa causes the degeneration of photoreceptor cells, which capture and process light to enable vision in the retina. As these cells degenerate and expire, patients experience progressive vision loss.

Age Macular Degeneration is a progressive eye condition that attacks the macula of the eye, where the sharpest central vision occurs. This disease seldom causes complete blindness; however, it does result in the loss of the outermost peripheral vision, leaving only dim images or black holes at the vision’s center. Photoreceptor cells in the retina of AMD and RP patients don’t work.

The team achieved its first goal with a prototype by developing a device with 16 electrode rays which is surgically implanted into the patient’s retina. The device replaces the naturally missing photoreceptors with electrical stimulation and signals.

“Essentially what we do is put an electronic device that takes part of the retina that doesn’t work anymore,” Lazzi said. “That is implanted by the surgeon in the eye so the patient sees again.”

A tiny camera on a pair of glasses worn by the patient sends signals to the device on an implant attached on the retina. The implant then sends signals to the remaining healthy retinal nerve cells and optic nerve which communicate directly with the brain and allow the patient to see. This model enables patients to describe an object’s motion, count distinct items and locate and differentiate objects in an environment.

“It provides the electrical signal that is naturally missing,” Lazzi said. “The injected electric currents in place try to mimic and do the same job as the photoreceptors.”

And it doesn’t stop there.

Researchers will go even further to make this implant device smaller, more powerful and implanted with less surgical invasion.

The blind will rely on this future generation of artificial retinas that will be wireless with a camera transmitting to a receiver behind the lens, relaying the signal to the retina. By 2013, the artificial retina team aims to make implants that are receptive and sensitive enough to enable patients to see large print and recognize faces.

According to Lazzi, to achieve this vision there needs to be at least 1,000 electrodes that stimulate the neuro cells in the retina.

The future device of artificial retinas is in the earlier stages of testing, but its success will be attributed to the partnership of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Second Sight, Doheny Eye Institute at University of Southern California, University of Southern California at Santa Cruz and N.C. State University.

As a part of the artificial retina team, Lazzi assists with the electrical and thermo modeling of the device which tells how much energy can be used to stimulate the remaining non-disease cells.

“It will take years to develop a device that is safe and effective,” Lazzi said. “But we are taking the road.”