Transistion Contact Lenses

Scientists at the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have found a way to create transition contact lenses. Like transition glasses, transition contact lenses become darker when exposed to the UV radiation in sunlight. Thus, they act like normal contact lenses indoors and sunglasses outdoors.

Transition sunglasses are coated with millions of photochromic molecules. These molecules change their shape when exposed to UV radiation and cause the sunglasses to become darker. This technology has not been applied to contact lenses before because it is very difficult to apply the coating of molecules to the lenses uniformly.

Dr. Jackie Ying and his team of scientists overcame this obstacle by developing a material with a mesh-work of nanotubes in it. The nanotubes hold the photochromic molecules uniformly distributed throughout the contact lenses. The technology is not limited to transition contact lenses. It is possible to use this technology to develop contact lenses that contain drugs that can be slowly released into the eye.

Tests conducted on animals show that the contacts are bio-compatible. Further research is planned to determine whether the photochromic molecules leak out of the contacts during use. The team also needs to improve the transition time from its current 20 to 30 seconds to nearly instant to avoid temporarily blinding people when they transition from outdoors to indoors.