Coffee & Chips Friday

The PhotoSense project is an NFR-financed project with the primary objective to develop a biomolecular retinal implant, i.e. an artificial retina that is NOT based on electronics but on synthetic biological material, in particular, the light sensitive molecule bacteriorhodopsin (BR) harvested from bacteria.

Project partner UiO is assisting the development of the production process with a test platform to verify the performance of these implant prototypes quickly and reliably. The test platform is a novel CMOS sensor microchip with a 2D array of optical (photo diodes) and chemical (ion-sensitive transistors) sensor-pixels.

When the implant prototype is placed upon the CMOS sensor chip, the chip assesses the prototype's effectiveness in changing the local ion concentration when exposed to light. If the change is sufficient, the implant will be able to stimulate optical nerve cells in the eye, i.e. substitute the function of the photosensitive rods and cones that are damaged in patients with degenerative retinal diseases.

The presentation is held by Philipp Häfliger, Professor at the University of Oslo, Research Group for Nanoelectronic systems.

Hosted by CC-NorChip / SINTEF and Forskningsparken.

Previous speakers:

• Thomas Ramberg, Dory and Tobias Dahl, SINTEF

• Linn Fagerberg, managing director at Electronic Coast in Horten

• Vegard Standeren Olsen og Ralph Bernstein, CC-NorChip

• Ingelin Clausen, CEO InVivo Binonics

• Lasse Irvam og Preben Storås, grunnleggere Optronics Technology

• Elizaveta Vereshchagina, seniorforsker ved SINTEF, BreathSense

• Henrik Hovde Sønsteby, førsteamanuensis ved UiO, CONCEPT

About CC-NorChip:

The competence center CC-NorChip will, over the next four years, offer free support to small and medium-sized enterprises to lower the threshold for adopting advanced technology. The goal is to raise competence and competitiveness in Norway and Europe by strengthening Norwegian companies’ ability to utilize advanced technologies and capacities both nationally and internationally.

CC-NorChip is a collaboration between SINTEF, NTNU, the University of Oslo (UiO), the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), the University of Tromsø (UiT), and Electronic Coast, with support from, among others, the EU and the Research Council of Norway.

CC-NorChip | Sikrer Norges posisjon innen avansert teknologi