Night vision eyedrops allow vision of up to 50m in darkness
Night vision eyedrops allow vision of up to 50m in
darkness
The eyedrops were created by a team of independent
Californian biohackers
By Jamie Campbell
Friday 27 March 2015
It might sound like something straight out of Q’s
laboratory or the latest Marvel film but a group of scientists in California
have successfully created eye drops that temporarily enable night vision.
Science for the Masses, an independent “citizen science”
organisation that operates from the city of Tehacapi, theorised that Chlorin e6
(Ce6), a natural molecule that can be created from algae and other green
plants, could enhance eyesight in dark environments.
The molecule is found in some deep sea fish, forms the
basis of some cancer therapies and has been previously prescribed intravenously
for night blindness.
Jeff Tibbets, the lab’s medical officer, said: “There are
a fair amount of papers talking about having injected it in models like rats
and it’s been used intravenously since the 60s as treatments for different
cancers. After doing the research, you have to take the next step.”
The next step was to moisten the eyes of biochemical
researcher and willing guinea pig Gabriel Licina’s eyes with 50 microlitres of
Ce6.
The effect was apparently almost instantaneous and, after
an hour, he was able to distinguish shapes from 10 metres away in the dark and
soon at even greater distances.
“We had people go stand in the woods,” Licina said, “At
50 metres, I could figure who they were, even if they were standing up against
a tree.”
The control group without Ce6 were only able to pick out
the objects a third of the time, while Licina’s success was 100 per cent.
The effect of the chemical only lasted for a few hours
and the test subject's eyesight returned to normal the next day.
The organisation has released a paper that detailed the
experiment in their website. It says that more research will need to be
conducted to measure the actual amount of electrical stimulation increase in
the eye whilst the long term effects of the procedure will require further
investigation.
Tibbets says that this success is perfect demonstration
of the work that his organisation conducts: “For us, it comes down to pursuing
things that are doable but won’t be pursued by major corporations. There are
rules to be followed and don’t go crazy, but science isn’t a mystical language
that only a few elite people can speak.”
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