Organic Semiconductor Nanoparticles Restore Vision in Blind Retinas
Guglielmo Lanzani a b
a CNST, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Milano, Via Giovanni Pascoli, 70, Milano, Italy
b Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, Milano, Italy
Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2023 Conference (MATSUSFall23)
#BIOELCHEM - Bioelectrochemical Systems from Sustainable Electrode Materials
Torremolinos, Spain, 2023 October 16th - 20th
Organizers: Anna-Maria Pappa and Kyriaki Polychronopoulou
Invited Speaker, Guglielmo Lanzani, presentation 041
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsus.2023.041
Publication date: 18th July 2023

Inherited retinal dystrophies and late-stage age-related macular degeneration, for which treatments remain limited, are among the most prevalent causes of legal blindness. Retinal prostheses have been developed to stimulate the inner retinal network; however, lack of sensitivity and resolution, and the need for wiring or external cameras, have limited their application. Here I report on the use of conjugated polymer nanoparticles (P3HT NPs), showing that they mediate light-evoked stimulation of retinal neurons and persistently rescue visual functions when subretinally injected in a rat model of retinitis pigmentosa. In particular I will report on recent results showing that the organic liquid prosthesis is effective also in retinas that have undergone a process of rewiring caused by the loss of photoreceptor function. I will discuss a numerical model that trys to capture the essential nature of the photostimulation mechanism by numerically solving the Poisson-Nernst-Planck (drift-diffusion)  equation with proper boundary conditions taking into account theelectron transfer processes occuring at the interface. 
 

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