A smart lens that watches your eyes, catching glaucoma’s silent threat before it steals sight, turning prevention into vision saved.
Nearly two decades ago, Queen’s University researchers Yong Jun Lai and Robert Campbell crossed paths at a Kingston playground as their children played nearby. By chance, their conversation that day grew into a lasting partnership between engineering and ophthalmology, ultimately leading to the development of a lens designed to detect harmful changes in eye pressure before irreversible damage occurs.
Alongside co-inventor Angelica Campigotto—who was a Queen’s PhD candidate at the time— the team developed a lens capable of continuously monitoring intraocular pressure (IOP), the leading risk factor for the progression of glaucoma. The initial patent was approved in 2020.
According to Statistics Canada, glaucoma is a disease that affects more than 450,000 Canadians and is the leading cause of irreversible vision loss. Because it often develops without noticeable symptoms, the disease is commonly diagnosed only after significant damage has occurred.
Current diagnostic methods provide only a single pressure reading during an in-clinic eye exam, making it difficult to track changes in IOP throughout the day.
The lens helps fill this gap by continuously and non-invasively measuring eye pressure, which could lead to earlier detection and treatment. The lens features a hollow tube filled with liquid that doesn’t interfere with the ’s vision. Once fitted, patients will be able to use a smartphone and a companion app (currently in development) to photograph their cornea throughout the day. These images will be shared with physicians, allowing for real-time monitoring of IOP changes.
With from a $596,700 commercialization grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, their startup, LenSense Inc., incorporated in 2022, is now working to bring the lens into clinical practice.
“It’s all about prevention,” Campbell said in an interview with The Journal. “As a glaucoma surgeon, I see the blinding cases; I am intimately aware of the tremendous impact of this disease on people’s lives. Since the [vision loss] is irreversible, we try to prevent that from happening. This lens will help us monitor the disease better.”
Lai added that the device was the result of years of interdisciplinary collaboration at Queen’s. “We [engineers] have worked for twenty years to try to help clinicians. We have developed sutures and other devices, and this lens is our most recent,” Lai said in an interview with The Journal.
Both researchers stressed the importance of student researchers throughout the project. “Students were a major force in the contributions. I can’t overstate their importance,” Lai said.
Campbell agreed. “There’ve been students all along the way. In fact, one of the PhD students who’s now graduating is one of the co-patent holders on some of the intellectual property that’s come out of this [project].”
With funding secured and prototype manufacturing in progress, LenSense is positioned to advance the future of glaucoma detection and treatment.
“Seeing this project on the verge of coming to fruition is extremely rewarding,” Campbell said. “It’s a team effort, for sure.”
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