BVA Annual Report 2014

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative in Bionic Vision Science and Technology Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 a

Bionic Vision Australia (BVA) is a national consortium of researchers from the Bionics Institute, the Centre for Eye Research Australia, NICTA, the University of Melbourne and the University of New South Wales. The National Vision Research Institute, the University of Western Sydney and the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital are supporting partners. This project is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) through its Special Research Initiative in Bionic Vision Science and Technology.

Our members

Our partners

The Bionics Institute is an independent, not-for-profit research institute undertaking world-class medical bionics research in the areas of bionic hearing, bionic vision and neurobionics. Bionics Institute scientists and engineers are leaders in medical bionics research, focussed on tangible outcomes for the hundreds of thousands of current device users, and the ever increasing number of potential recipients, worldwide.

The National Vision Research Institute’s (NVRI) goal is to conduct research that will lead to the preservation of sight and the prevention of blindness. The NVRI carries out basic science, translational and clinical research and is committed to exploring the processes that generate vision disorders. The Institute is a division of the Australian College of Optometry.

The Centre for Eye Research Australia’s (CERA) mission is to eliminate the major eye diseases that cause vision loss and blindness and reduce their impact in the community.

Research at CERA covers a full spectrum from basic science seeking to understand disease processes at the molecular level through to clinical research, including trials of new treatments, to population and health services research.

National ICT Australia (NICTA) is Australia’s Information Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence and the nation’s largest organisation dedicated to ICT research. NICTA’s research addresses the technology challenges facing industry, the community and the whole nation. NICTA’s primary goal is to pursue high-impact research excellence and, through application of this research, to create national benefit and wealth for Australia.

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) is one of Australia’s leading research and teaching universities with a strong record in science and technology research. A significant number of researchers from The Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering (GSBmE) are part of BVA’s bionic eye research. The GSBmE is internationally recognised for its contribution to biomedical engineering education and research. The School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications is also contributing researcher expertise to the bionic eye project.

The University of Melbourne is a leading Australian university that makes distinctive contributions to society in research, learning and teaching and engagement. Researchers from Anatomy and Neuroscience, Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the School of Physics are contributing to the bionic eye project.

The University of Western Sydney (UWS) is one of the largest universities in Australia and has been recognised for the excellence and depth of its research.

Researchers from the School of Medicine who specialise in sensory neuroscience are investigating key questions about bionic vision.

The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital cares for more than 250,000 patients each year, through an outpatient service, emergency department and specialist clinics.

The Hospital strives to apply new and effective models of care, invest in research and training and share our knowledge to improve eye and ear health.

Cover: Mathilde Escudie at the Melbourne Materials Institute, the University of Melbourne.

Corporate photography used throughout by Rasha Photography, Andrew Harris, David Mirabella, Joe Vittorio and Paul Wright.

Additional photographs of 24-electrode prototype test participants provided by the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. Photograph of BVA team and Eureka Awards ceremony courtesy of Australian Museum Eureka Prizes and photographer Daniel O’Doherty. Medical illustrations of Wide-View and High-Acuity devices copyright Beth Croce. Other images courtesy of BVA members and partners.

Contents Goal and aims

02

Chairman’s welcome

03

Director’s report

04

Research update

06

Awards and highlights

11

Education and training

12

Collaboration and sponsorship

13

Media, events and community engagement 14 Governance and management

15

Financial report

16

Staff and students

17

Publications 21

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 1

Our global goal To rapidly develop internationally competitive retinal implants and technologies that are shown to be clinically safe and effective in restoring sight, leading to successful commercialisation.

Our aims • Improve the quality of life for people with degenerative vision conditions by bringing together Australia’s top scientists, engineers and clinicians to develop a bionic eye and carry out the first prototype human implant by 2013 • Train the next generation of medical bionics experts • Advance and commercialise bionic vision technology, further enhancing Australia’s position as a leader in the field of medical bionics

2 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

Chairman’s welcome Dr Colin Sutton Interim Chairman, Bionic Vision Australia 2013 was the fourth year of the ARC’s Special Research Initiative in Bionic Vision Science and Technology which in 2010 resulted in the establishment of BVA and the Monash Vision Group. Originally slated as the final year of the Initiative, 2013 saw both groups reviewed and to our great delight, funding extended for a further twelve months.

I extend a sincere thanks to the ARC for their support.

This outcome was a testament to the efforts of the Chairs of BVA and the Monash Vision Group – Professors David Penington and David de Kretser. I would like to convey my thanks on behalf of the BVA Board to both Chairs for their part in securing the additional year of funding. In addition, I wish to acknowledge the untiring efforts of my predecessor David Penington who chaired the BVA Board from the outset until September 2013. The quest to build a bionic eye is a substantial and challenging one, and it took a Chair with David’s extensive medical, academic and business credentials to provide the strategic direction needed to help shape this initiative.

substantial amount of collaborative work, it is important not to let the momentum slow at the conclusion of the present ARC funding period.

Planning is now focused on three long-term streams of activity: clinical research, fundamental research and commercialisation. In order to maintain funding for this research our investigators are seeking further grants from the ARC, as well as funds from the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to support clinical developments.

As the project progresses towards pilot patient studies we are exploring various investment and commercialisation options. This level of interest in a BVA product is very encouraging.

The extension of funding also recognised the talent and dedication of a very hardworking team of researchers led by Professor Anthony Burkitt. Great technical outcomes continued in 2013, with the many publications and awards detailed later in this report. The three wonderful test participants, who began testing with a prototype bionic eye implant in 2012, continued to be significant contributors to our research, participating in regular testing sessions and providing great insights into our understanding of the device. While our test participants were the more public face of BVA, there were many wonderful achievements behind the scenes detailed in the Director’s report and Research update.

I continue to be impressed by the members of the BVA Board of Directors, and wish to convey my thanks to them for their contributions.

Once a fifth year of funding was secured, we set about planning to achieve the best possible outcomes for the project using the available funds. After such a

Thanks also to the members of our Scientific Advisory Board(SAB),

in particular Distinguished Professor Brian Anderson of the Australian National University (ANU), who retired as Chair of the SAB in late 2013.

At the end of 2012, a public appeal was launched for the bionic eye initiative, and a number of very generous people donated to this appeal in 2013. On behalf of all across the project, my warmest thanks to each of you. These funds have supported specialised research in our High-Acuity device program.

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to the wonderful team that makes up BVA, the senior investigators, guided by the Research Management Committee, the Executive and Leadership groups, our bright students, and all the researchers and professional staff.

Bionic Vision Australia: Beyond 2013 2010–2013

2014

2015 and beyond

Fundamental, enabling research (ARC CoE, Discovery Projects, DECRAs)

BVA

Commercial development – market forces (Venture Capital, Philanthropy)

Clinical implementation and assessment (NHMRC Project Grants, Philanthropy)

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 3

DIRECTOR’s Report Professor Anthony N. Burkitt Director, Bionic Vision Australia The announcement in mid-July that the ARC would provide an additional year of funding brought extra impetus to our research activities for 2013. It proved to be an exciting year for the project with important outcomes across all our research teams. We began to transition our research into three streams of activity to help ensure the longevity of our research through 2014 and beyond. We now have a critical mass of knowledge and skills, and a professional workforce capable of bringing a clinical device to fruition. The progress we made in 2013 provides us with considerable confidence that this will be achieved.

2013 Research achievements • Implemented and optimised test protocols to assess participant performance on navigation and activities of daily living tasks pre- and post-implantation of the 24-electrode bionic eye prototype in three participants • Began testing with a mobile, external system integrated with the 24-electrode prototype to provide the electrical stimulation and vision processing required for navigation and activities of daily living • Advanced techniques and processes to achieve hermeticity for both the Wide-View and High-Acuity devices • Further developed the form factor (the physical characteristics) of both the Wide-View and High-Acuity devices to increase biocompatibility and stability within the human eye • Advanced our understanding of the visual system and how it will interact with stimulation from the retinal implant through computer modelling and in vitro studies • Developed and tested stimulation strategies for future use with the 24-electrode prototype, and WideView and High-Acuity devices.

Clinical research Testing of the 24-electrode prototype with patients has provided a wealth of information about the potential benefits of our technology.

Testing advanced significantly in 2013 and results from use of a participant-worn portable stimulator system have been enormously encouraging. These patient tests provide us with the opportunity to integrate findings from across our research teams – including stimulation strategy, psychophysics and vision processing – and feed findings into the development of our Wide-View and High-Acuity devices. We are indebted to our three remarkable test participants for their dedication to the project, and the time and energy they have devoted to working with us. I congratulate all those involved for these outstanding outcomes which lay a solid foundation for future clinical and commercial application of this technology.

Fundamental research There has been significant progress across our areas of fundamental research – including developments related to hermeticity of both the Wide-View and High-Acuity implants, progress in the design and refinement of the electronics components, and developments in modelling and stimulation strategies.

This work establishes the safety of devices ahead of patient testing and will determine the effectiveness of our devices now and into the future. We look forward with eager anticipation to being able to assess these advancements in future tests.

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Commercialisation Ensuring the commercial viability of our devices is central to the research and development of our bionic vision technologies. To this end our commercialisation activities in 2013 focused on the regulatory requirements to ensure our WideView and High-Acuity devices meet the demands of clinical use. This process is building the necessary skills and knowledge to meet the regulatory and quality requirements of medical devices for human use and is key to building the next generation of medical bionics researchers. Our patent portfolio has developed impressively and is detailed later in this report.

Recognition and thanks Early in 2013 the ARC undertook a review of the Special Research Initiative in Bionic Vision Science and Technology, which includes both the BVA and Monash Vision Group projects. The results of the review were very positive and the panel noted that both projects had made exceptional advances in several areas.

In particular, the report praised BVA for establishing a critical mass of multidisciplinary teams in medical bionics, and the engagement of accomplished researchers and high quality students. They also made helpful suggestions about areas for improvement and new initiatives.

These have been integrated into the planning for our final year of ARC funding.

It has been gratifying to see the extent of the public recognition for our research program and the achievements of many of our researchers. We were named as finalists in the 2013 Eureka Prize for Interdisciplinary Research and the 2013 Melbourne Awards based upon the achievements in the development and implantation of the 24-electrode prototype. Professor Gregg Suaning and his team were awarded two prizes in the UNSW Innovation Awards and Dr Lauren Ayton was granted a Hugh Rogers Fellowship to pursue collaborative work with Dr Joseph Rizzo in Boston.

There have been numerous other awards, prizes, and promotions that attest to the quality of the work being undertaken within BVA and these are detailed later in this report.

We aim to ensure people who are blind or have low vision are kept up to date with our progress and to share our publicly-funded research with the community more broadly. In 2013 we had an active program of engagement with vision impaired people, community groups and schools to share information about our program and the possibilities of our research.

Looking forward

I would particularly like to thank our many researchers who have been involved in outreach over the past year.

I would like to thank Professor Nigel Lovell and Professor Robyn Guymer for the support they have provided as part of the Leadership Group, and the members of the BVA Research Management Committee for their dedication to the management of the research program. The whole Executive team have provided enormous behind-the-scenes support to the BVA program, for which I am very grateful. I have been particularly fortunate to have the dedicated and unstinting support of the BVA Project Manager, Tamara Brawn, and BVA General Manager, Julie Anne Quinn, whose thoroughly professional commitment to the project I am especially grateful for. I would like to acknowledge the work of Veronika Gouskova, Marketing and Communications Manager, who made an enormous contribution to all facets of our public relations, communications and outreach activities before concluding with BVA at the end of 2013.

The very welcome announcement of further funding in 2014 allows us to extend the 24-electrode prototype study, further develop and test both the High-Acuity and Wide-View devices, and prepare for the first patient studies with prototypes of these devices.

Our key objectives for 2014 are to: • Extend the 24-electrode prototype patient study until mid-2014 • Develop a fully implantable 24-electrode device for patient testing planned for late 2014 or early 2015 • Demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the Wide-View and High-Acuity devices by preclinical testing in preparation for future patient testing • Actively seek further sources of funding to augment and further develop our research.

I have been very privileged to lead such an exciting endeavour and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the BVA Annual Report for 2013. My thanks to all those involved in BVA for making 2013 a year of such outstanding advances in bionic vision research.

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 5

research update 2013 marked the beginning of a transition to three streams of activity that will carry work forward after the completion of the ARC funded Special Research Initiative in Bionic Vision Science and Technology.

The three streams are: 1. Fundamental research that will continue to advance and optimise the technologies and approaches 2. Clinical implementation and assessment of the Wide-View and High-Acuity technology to provide a sense of vision to people with profound vision loss 3. Commercial potential for the technology in the field of retinal prostheses and beyond

Clinical research In 2013 our clinical program focused on testing with three participants – Dianne Ashworth, Maurice Skehan and Murray Rowland (pictured) – who were implanted with 24-electrode prototype bionic eye devices in 2012.

Results of our tests with all three participants have continued to be enormously encouraging, with all three able to perceive visual percepts

of varying intensity and dynamic range. Through this testing, we have learnt about patient needs, which will inform future device design and stimulation strategies, allow optimisation of techniques for testing functional vision at very low levels and establish factors that may predict performance with future devices.

In 2013 we reached the important milestones of integrating a wearable camera with the device and began testing functional vision (such as orientation, mobility and activity of daily living skills) with a patient worn portable stimulator system.

Key outcomes Psychophysics testing was conducted throughout the year with each participant to establish the shape and form of phosphenes generated from the stimulated electrodes in the implant. The phosphene maps that were generated for each participant through this psychophysics testing have been used to encode the visual input from a wearable camera, enabling the use of the portable stimulator system in a real world setting.

6 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

In February 2013, testing began in the lab with a camera integrated into the external system used to stimulate the electrodes. The camera, mounted on a pair of glasses, enables patients to scan and pick up key visual information in their environment. Using the camera, patients have been able to locate white objects on a black background, specify the relative size of objects, and correctly identify letters and shapes on a computer screen.

Integration of the camera and progression to real-world tasks was an important milestone for both participants and researchers, and marked significance progress towards creating a system that can provide prosthetic vision and enhanced environmental awareness.

Researchers and participants achieved another significant milestone in the 24-electrode prototype study in October 2013 with commencement of functional vision testing with a patient worn portable stimulator system.

The system enables test participants to utilise visual information from the camera to move around a controlled indoor testing environment.

Clinicians are using the system to measure patient performance on tasks in a real world setting – including measures of orientation, mobility, and activities of daily living.

These measures were validated in a study with people with low vision prior to testing with the prototype system, and will provide important information on the benefits the device can provide.

Outcomes of clinical research with patients continued to feed into development of the future Wide-View and High-Acuity devices in 2013. Findings from patient testing are informing the development of both the device design and stimulation strategies.

The information obtained by our detailed psychophysical, vision processing and functional vision testing with the patients has continued to demonstrate that the suprachoroidal placement, which

has been central to the planning and design of the Wide-View device, is safe for patients and provides effective stimulation of remaining retinal nerve cells.

For the first time, a method of vision processing which requires no user intervention was shown to lead to significant improvements in patient performance on an object localisation task versus a control technique where no other parameters of the trial were changed.

The approach is called the Lanczos2 filter, and BVA has pioneered its use in retinal implants.

This testing has also been invaluable in informing us about the most suitable mode of stimulation by the implant and how the stimulation parameters and vision processing algorithms can be tailored to provide the greatest benefit to future patients.

Clinical program in 2014 We will be extending the 24-electrode prototype study until mid-2014 to capitalise on what is being learnt.

This work will help researchers and clinicians develop effective measures of functional vision for the implants and learn more about the device within the eye. Extending this study will directly inform fundamental research in the Wide-View and High-Acuity program. We have been fortunate that our participants were all willing and able to be involved in this study extension.

In addition to continuing this study, a new, fully implantable version of the prototype device will be developed for a future round of patient tests.

The initial prototype system uses a percutaneous connector to carry data and power to the implant, whereas this next version will not use the connector. The proposed future study will enable researchers to optimise external systems for image capture and processing, and will assist clinicians to further improve patient selection, assessment and training protocols.

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 7

Fundamental research There are many questions still to be addressed to optimise bionic eye technology, with the expectation that developments and advances will continue for many years after the first devices enter clinical use.

In 2013 researchers made great progress with these fundamental questions. These findings will lead to future developments for both the Wide-View and High-Acuity devices.

3 1 Camera captures image and wirelessly transmits data to an external, body worn processor

Wireless transmission

Electrical signals sent from retina via visual pathway to vision processing centres in the brain

High-Acuity device The retinal implant for the High-Acuity bionic eye will initially contain 256, and then 1024, stimulating electrodes.

It will be implanted epiretinally – on the inside surface of the retina. The box that will encapsulate the implant, and the electrodes themselves, will be made of stable, inert polycrystalline doped diamond.

Future versions of the device will utilise wireless technology.

The High-Acuity device aims to restore vision to a level where people will be able to recognise faces and read large print.

Wide-View device The retinal implant for the Wide-View device will have an electrode array with 98 stimulating electrodes. This implant will be placed in the suprachoroidal space, between the choroid and the sclera layers of the retina, protecting the retina from damage during surgery and helping to maintain the implant’s position. This device builds upon technologies that have been successfully employed in cochlear implants and uses materials with established biocompatibility and biostability. This device aims to restore vision to a degree that enables increased mobility and independence.

8 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

2 Processor sends data to implant which stimulates retina

4

1

Implanted electrode array stimulates retina

Camera captures image and transmits data to an external body worn processing unit

5 Electrical signals sent from retina via visual pathway to vision processing centres in the brain

2

Data processed and sent to implanted system via external wire

3 Implant receives signals from external unit and sends them to retinal implant via implanted wire

Hermeticity

Safety and efficacy studies

Stimulation strategy

Ensuring that the implantable components of bionic vision devices are protected from fluid within the body is an ongoing challenge for researchers. The small size of the implantable components, and our commitment to ensure hermeticity for the lifetime of the device, make this challenge particularly significant.

In 2013 important progress was made toward achieving hermeticity for both the Wide-View and HighAcuity devices.

In 2013 work on the Wide-View system has further improved the form factor, or physical characteristics, of implantable elements of the device.

In vivo testing took place throughout the year to assess how changes in the design of the implant will affect the placement of the implant in the eye.

Work continued in 2013 on modelling and then evaluating, with in vitro and in vivo studies, the optimal way to stimulate the retina with the Wide-View and High-Acuity devices. Steering of electrical current has been the focus of both groups with techniques to utilise the hexagonal layout of Wide-View electrodes showing promising results. Simulation studies have also optimised methods for processing the images captured by a camera into stimulation patterns that will be of most benefit to the patients. These approaches to stimulation strategies, and depicting depth, edges and the ground plane, will be tested with the 24-electrode prototype test participants in 2014.

For the Wide-View device, researchers have made exceptional progress in methods for bonding and testing the bonding of the implantable components. Their findings may have wide ranging applications in the medical bionics field, outside of retinal prostheses.

Strong progress has also been made in 2013 in developing a hermetic High-Acuity device. Using laser welding of a braze researchers demonstrated that a hermetic diamond box could be created to house the stimulating microchip.

Development of safe and reliable attachment techniques for the epiretinal placement of the HighAcuity implant has continued to be a focus, and studies have been conducted on the optimal attachment strategy to ensure lifetime stability with work in this area continuing in 2014.

In 2014 development, safety and efficacy studies with the WideView and High-Acuity systems will continue throughout the year in preparation for future patient tests.

Above: new microchips for both the Wide-View and HighAcuity devices were returned from fabrication in 2013, and researchers progressed through verification and validation testing ahead of efficacy studies planned for 2014.

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 9

Commercial As our research program progresses, ensuring the commercial and clinical viability of our devices is key.

In 2013 significant energy was invested in ensuring that our processes meet regulatory requirements.

Our teams continued to make excellent progress in expanding our Quality Management System to support the international standard for manufacturing medical devices. Experience working within the requirements of a Quality Management System is a key requirement in building a medical bionics workforce.

We have now accumulated a substantial patent portfolio that speaks to the originality and commercial viability of research from across our teams.

Patents Application No.

Title

Inventors

Status

US 6458157

Retinal Stimulator

Gregg Suaning

Granted

US 7003355

Vision prosthesis for the blind and method for implementing same

Gregg Suaning, Nigel Lovell, Yves Kerdraon

Granted

US 8606363

Electrode multiplexing method for retinal prosthesis

Gregg Suaning, Nigel Lovell

Granted

US 7818876

Method for fabrication of hermetic electrical conductor feedthroughs

Gregg Suaning

Granted

US 8583243

Apparatus for stimulating and/or monitoring activity in tissue

Chris Williams, Penny Allen, Joel Villalobos

Granted

US 8588931

Neural stimulation with varying amplitude

Mark Halpern, James Fallon

Granted

AU 2010/242526 US 13/266317 EP 2424476

Retinal Prosthesis

David Ng, Shun Bai, Stan Skafidas, Penny Allen, Chris William, Hamish Meffin, Mark McCombe, Mark Halpern

National Phase Entry (NPE)

AU 2010/302959 US 13/498667 EP 2482760

Object tracking for artificial vision

Nick Barnes, Chunhua Shen

NPE

AU 2010/305323 US 13/500606 EP 2485692

Vision Enhancement for a vision impaired user

Nick Barnes

NPE

AU 2010/306068 US 13/501714 EP 2485801

Method of power and data transfer in implantable electronic devices

Gregg Suaning, Phil Byrnes-Preston, Torsten Lehmann

NPE

AU 2010/333698 US 13/516752 EP 2512373

Method and apparatus for stimulating retinal nerve cells

Mohit Shivdasani, Chris Williams, Peter Blamey

NPE

AU 2011/284808 US 13/813421 EP 2591531

Current recycling in multiple linear regulators

Torsten Lehmann, Yuanyuan Yang

NPE

AU 2013/202058

Visual prosthesis apparatus

Nicholas Sinclair, Kyle Slater, Hugh McDermott, Peter Blamey

NPE

AU 2012/286590

Circuitry for controlling delivery of stimulation signals

Hugh McDermott, Peter Seligman

NPE

AU 2012/211030 US 13/981584 EP 2667931

Stimulation method for maintaining the responsiveness of electrically excitable cells to repeated electrical stimulation

David Tsai, Nigel Lovell, John Morley, Gregg Suaning

NPE

PCT/AU2012/000609

An electrode and a feedthrough for medical device applications

David Garrett, Steven Prawer, Kumar Ganesan, Kate Fox, Hamish Meffin, Igor Aharonovich, Samantha Lichter

Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)

PCT/AU2012/001027

Neural stimulation electrodes

Gregg Suaning

PCT

A further seven provisional patents and five PCTs are in draft/application at the time of writing.

10 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

awards and highlights Professor Michael Ibbotson received the Leo Dintenfass Memorial Award from the Rebecca L Cooper Foundation for the most interesting or innovative research grant of the year: “Recreating vision in the retina using electrical stimulation.”

Dr Shaun Cloherty was awarded the Cyril Max Werner Research Award for 2013 at the Australian College of Optometry.

Dr Lauren Ayton and Ronald Leung received travel scholarships to attend the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) conference in Seattle.

PhD candidate Samunda Perera completed a two month research visit to Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK. Dr Chris McCarthy, David Feng and Professor Nick Barnes were awarded best paper at the IEEE workshop on multi-modal and alternative perception for vision impaired people for their paper “Augmenting intensity to enhance scene structure in prosthetic vision”.

PhD candidate Matias Maturana won 2nd prize for his poster at the Students of Brain Research conference. Matias was also awarded the Best Poster Prize at the Australian College of Optometry conference.

Professor Gregg Suaning and his team took away two prizes in the UNSW Innovation Awards: a category prize for Advanced Innovation – Partnerships and the major UNSW Innovation Award.

Dr Lauren Ayton was awarded a Hugh Rogers Fellowship to travel to Boston to pursue collaborative work with Dr Joseph Rizzo of the Boston Retinal Implant Project.

BVA was named as a finalist in the 2013 Melbourne Awards. BVA Board Member Professor Hugh Taylor AC received a Melbourne Award in the category of ‘Contribution to community by an individual’.

BVA was a finalist in the 2013 Eureka Prize category for Interdisciplinary Research.

An article from the BVA team at the Bionics Institute entitled ‘Visual Prostheses for the blind’ was featured on the cover of Trends in Biotechnology.

Professor Peter Blamey was awarded the Lions Clubs International Foundation Melvin Jones Fellowship for humanitarian work.

PhD candidate Tianruo Guo presented a paper as a finalist in the EMBC student paper competition and achieved second place. BVA has had three finalists in this student paper competition over recent years.

Gregg Suaning was promoted to Professor.

At the CERA awards night PhD candidate Lil Deverell was recognised for her outstanding student contribution, Dr Chi Luu was recognised for teaching and training and Dr Lauren Ayton for community engagement.

Professor Nigel Lovell was presented with the 2013 David Dewhurst Award from the College of Biomedical Engineers, Engineers Australia, for his contribution to the biomedical engineering profession in Australia.

Lachlan Horne, Associate Professor Nick Barnes and Jose Alvarez received the best paper award for their paper “Exploiting Sparsity for Real Time Video Labelling” at the Computer Vision Technology: from Earth to Mars, workshop at the International Conference on Computer Vision.

Dr Sharon Bentley became just the fourth Australian to receive a Low Vision Diplomate from the American Academy of Optometry.

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 11

education AND TRAINING BVA is fortunate to have a talented group of postgraduate students contributing to our research. Their efforts have helped progress our research and meet our goal of developing the next generation of medical bionics researchers.

PhD completions in 2013 Amgad Habib (UNSW): ‘Response of retinal ganglion cells to electrical stimulation: an in-vitro study on the effect of electrode configuration’.

Professor Nigel Lovell and Professor John Morley.

Alex Hadjinicolaou (NVRI): ‘Optimal Electrical Activation of Retinal Ganglion Cells’. Professor Michael Ibbotson, Dr Shaun Cloherty, Dr Brendan O’Brien.

Sam Emmanuel John (Bionics Institute/La Trobe University): ‘Retinal Prostheses: Optimizing electrical stimulation for suprachoroidal retinal prostheses’. Mr Graeme Rathbone, A/Prof Chris Williams, Dr James Fallon and Dr Mohit Shivdasani.

Louis Jung (UNSW): ‘Design and optimization of system architecture and communications methods for implantable biomedical devices’.

Professor Nigel Lovell, Professor Gregg Suaning and Dr Torsten Lehmann.

Raymond Wong (NVRI): ‘Retinal ganglion cells: Physiology and Prosthesis’. Professor Michael Ibbotson, Dr Shaun Cloherty, Dr Brendan O’Brien.

Student and Early Career Researcher Day at the BVA Retreat

Support for PhD students and Early Career Researchers BVA supports its students and Early Career Researchers through events and sponsorships aimed at providing networking and professional development opportunities.

• Students and Early Career Researchers were a focus at this year’s Research Retreat with a day devoted to commercial skills development for these two key groups. The day saw presentations from a range of experts from industry and government.

Inspiring future researchers • The Vision Processing team at NICTA Canberra hosted twentyeight Year 12 students as part of the National Youth Science Forum.

• BVA researchers at the Melbourne Materials Institute hosted a summer intern – Aaron Lee – an undergraduate student in Biomedical Science and Materials Engineering at Monash University.

• Dr Mohit Shivdasani and Dr David Nayagam gave a presentation about their bionic eye research to students at Ivanhoe Girls Grammar.

• Professor Alan Yuille of UCLA delivered a workshop for PhD students and Early Career Researchers at NICTA in Canberra during his BVA-sponsored visit to Australia.

• Dr Matt Petoe from the Bionics Institute discussed the bionic eye project and what it is like being a research scientist with 28 students from Gleneagles College.

• BVA sponsored the Students of Brain Science Symposium held in Melbourne – an important event for students to network with each other and share their research.

• Researchers at the University of Melbourne hosted Year 10 work experience student Erim Kosyer from Thomastown Secondary College.

• A group of students and Early Career Researchers were supported to attend the AdBioFab workshop at St Vincent’s Hospital in May.

• PhD candidate Samantha Lichter presented her work at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education’s ‘Teach for Australia Summer School’. She also hosted a visit by secondary school students enrolled in the program to the Melbourne Materials Institute.

• As part of the Medical Bionics Conference program, BVA sponsored a student and early career researcher networking event.

• Isabell Kiral-Kornek, Veronika Gouskova and Tamara Brawn spoke about the bionic eye at Kensington Primary School.

• Dr Joel Villalobos, Nicholas Sinclair and Dr Matt Petoe gave a presentation about their bionic eye research to students from Geelong College.

• The Bionics Institute hosted 30 bio-science research students from Deakin University who came to hear Dr Matt Petoe speak about the bionic eye and commercialising bionic devices.

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collaboration and sponsorship Collaborating to advance research • Throughout 2013 collaborative work with the Monash Vision Group continued. Both groups met 14 times throughout the year to discuss technical topics. We worked closely together to secure an extension to this funding for 2014 and collaborated on several other joint grant applications. In addition, Dr Lauren Ayton and Professor Peter Blamey are Chief Investigators on a recently awarded NHMRC Project Development grant to the Monash Vision Group for $1.6 million.

• Researchers in the Wide-View program at UNSW collaborated with researchers at the University of Auckland on developing finiteelement models of electrical stimulation of the retina.

• Associate Professor Nick Barnes and the vision processing team from NICTA Canberra worked with engineers at the University of Adelaide to develop a backpack computer system to be used in vision processing simulation trials.

• Collaborative work has taken place between UNSW and Sydney Eye Hospital on surgical implantation procedures for the Wide-View Device.

• Clinicians from CERA continued their collaborative work with the Boston Retinal Implant Project to establish standards for assessing improvements in functional vision of bionic eye recipients.

Dr Lauren Ayton was awarded a Hugh Rogers Fellowship to travel to Boston to pursue collaborative work with Dr Joseph Rizzo of the Boston Retinal Implant Project. In early 2014 Dr Ayton and Dr Rizzo will jointly head an international taskforce that will aim to gain consensus about the assessment and reporting of outcomes in vision restoration trials.

BVA and Monash Vision Group students at the BVA Retreat.

• Students and Early Career Researchers from both the Monash Vision Group and BVA were welcomed to a commercialisation skills development workshop held as part of the 2013 BVA Retreat.

Contributing through sponsorship • BVA was a supporter of the ICT for Life Sciences Forum throughout 2013. The Forum brings together researchers to share knowledge and ideas at the interface of biology, engineering, the physical sciences and ICT. • In 2013 BVA again sponsored the Graeme Clark oration, an annual address organised by the ICT for Life Sciences Forum that honours the achievements of Professor Graeme Clark. Geoffrey Lamb of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation presented a public forum on the topic ‘Global Health, Economic Growth and the End of Absolute Poverty: hopeful evidence and hard challenges’.

• In early September BVA sponsored Professor Alan Yuille of UCLA to travel to Australia. As well as delivering a workshop in Canberra, Professor Yuille delivered an ICT for Life Science Forum, ‘Perceiving the World’, in Melbourne.

• BVA was a sponsor of the Medical Bionics Conference in 2013 – a key Australian medical bionics event hosted by the Bionics Institute. BVA provided support for two international speakers to attend the conference: Professor Dominique Durand from Case Western University, who is a member of the BVA Scientific Advisory Board and who subsequently gave an ‘ICT for Life Sciences’ lecture in Melbourne, and Dr Shelley Fried from Harvard, who also gave seminars at both UNSW and NVRI.

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 13

Media, events and community engagement Students, researchers and Executive staff dedicated time to sharing our research with the wider community by participating in events and talking to community groups and the media. A focus of our outreach activities was publicising our research amongst people who have low vision and their families.

Professor Michael Ibbotson delivered a Q&A on Bionic Eyes and the NVRI at the Mens’ Health Dinner at the Sandringham Club.

Lachlan Horne, David Feng and Veronika Gouskova took bionic vision research to Questacon – the national science and technology centre – for their Cutting Edge Science Day. Professor Nick Barnes and his team in Canberra hosted a public lecture about the role of vision processing in bionic eye research as part of the Centenary of Canberra celebrations.

Matias Maturana, a member of the Stimulation Strategy team, has developed an app to simulate what bionic vision might be like, and allow people to take photos using simulated bionic vision. Matias presented his app at the Australian College of Optometry conference.

The app is now available for iOS and Android.

Members of the BVA team at the University of Melbourne hosted Adam Bandt MP, Federal Member for Melbourne, at the Melbourne Materials Institute labs.

Dr Penny Allen presented a public lecture about the bionic eye as part of the 150th anniversary celebrations for the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.

BVA students and members of the BVA executive hosted a table at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital 150th anniversary street party to promote BVA’s work and answer questions from the public.

Fleur O’Hare gave a presentation about bionic eye research at the Age-related Macular Degeneration community forum held at CERA. Dr Lauren Ayton and Veronika Gouskova presented to the Board of Vision Australia at their annual planning workshop.

Shane McSweeney gave a presentation about the Orientation and Mobility work he is undertaking with BVA at the Disability Research Forum at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Kate Fox travelled to Adelaide to participate in the Royal Society for the Blind’s Techfest 2013, a community event designed to showcase technological innovations for the vision impaired community.

The Bionics Institute contributed video, animation and images to the Glasgow Science Centre for a new exhibition ‘Body Works Expo’ which will demonstrates current and possible advancements in medicine.

Professor Anthony Burkitt presented a public lecture entitled ‘Looking into the future of the bionic eye’ as part of the Melbourne School of Engineering Dean’s Lecture Series.

Mathilde Escudie, Isabell KiralKornek and Lil Deverell shared BVA’s work with visitors to the annual Vision Australia Texpo in Melbourne.

Fleur O’Hare and Dr Lauren Ayton presented their bionic eye research to the public at the Market of the Mind held on Southbank in Melbourne.

Dr Lauren Ayton and recipient of the first Australian bionic eye prototype, Dianne Ashworth, gave a presentation at Guide Dogs Victoria. Lauren and Dianne also spoke at the Retina Australia Annual General Meeting.

PhD candidate Isabell Kiral-Kornek spoke about bionic eye research at a CERA Fundraising concert.

Dr Tatiana Kamevera spoke about her work with the Victorian Life Sciences Computation

14 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

Initiative as part of the University of Melbourne’s Festival of Ideas.

Dr David Nayagam was invited to Houston to speak to NASA and ESA astronauts about his bionic eye research.

The Bionics Institute provided bionic eye artefacts, video and animation for a new permanent exhibition at Scienceworks. ‘Think Ahead’ will evolve as technology moves forward, but will be in place for the next eight years with an expected audience of 4 million.

Media BVA’s research continued to receive significant interest from media both in Australia and internationally. A highlight was an in depth story about vision processing and camera testing with test participants that appeared in all major Fairfax newspapers and was accompanied by a video of participants identifying letters and shapes with a wearable camera.

A further double-page spread in the Herald-Sun, entitled ‘Building a New Body’ and featured an interview with Professor Rob Shepherd about the advancements around the bionic eye device.

Clinicians from CERA regularly appeared on Vision Australia radio and RPH radio in Adelaide to keep listeners with vision impairment up to date with our research.

Early Career Researchers from a range of BVA member organisations were also a focus of a series of stories in local media throughout Melbourne. In total there were more than 50 mentions of BVA in newspapers, and on television and radio.

Governance and management The BVA Board of Directors provide oversight of the consortium’s operations and it is supported by the Scientific Advisory Board, the Risk and Audit Committee and the Research Management Committee.

An Executive Team provide project management, administrative and communications support to the consortium.

Alternate Directors who attended meetings of the Governing Board in 2013 are: Professor Anne Simmons (alternate for Associate Professor Laurent Rivory), Mr John Bryson and Professor Rob Shepherd (alternates for Ms Christina Hardy).

The Board

Ms Julie Anne Quinn, BVA General Manager, is Secretary to the Board.

In 2013 the Board met on: 21 March, 27 June, 19 September, 8 October, 14 November and 11 December.

Members Dr Colin Sutton (Deputy Chairman until September 2013, Interim Chairman from October 2013) – Director, New South Innovations Pty Ltd Professor Emeritus David Penington AC (Chairman until September 2013) Professor Hugh Taylor AC, MD, FRANZCO – Harold Mitchell Chair of Indigenous Eye Health, Melbourne School of Population Health Mr James Joughin – Director, Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) and Director, Ernst and Young Professor Mark Hargreaves – Professor, Department of Physiology and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Partnerships), University of Melbourne Associate Professor Laurent Rivory – Director, Research Strategy Office, University of New South Wales Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte – CEO, NICTA Ms Christina Hardy – Non-Executive Director, Bionics Institute and Director of Business Development and Legal Affairs, Garvan Institute of Medical Research

Dr Fiona Cameron attended meetings of the BVA Board from September as the ARC Observer.

Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) The SAB met on 21 August.

Members Distinguished Professor Brian Anderson (Chair until September 2013) Research School of Information Sciences and Engineering, The Australian National University Professor Dominique Durand Department of Biomedical Engineering Neural Engineering Center, Case Western Reserve University Cleveland Ohio, USA Scientia Professor Nigel Lovell (Convenor) Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales Professor Dr Thomas Stieglitz IMTEK – Institut für Mikrosystemtechnik, University of Freiburg, Germany Professor Mark Blumenkranz MD Professor and Chairman, Stanford University School of Medicine – Ophthalmology

Risk and Audit Committee The Risk and Audit Committee met on: 12 March, 28 May and 3 September.

Members Mr James Joughin, Ms Christina Hardy and Professor Mark Hargreaves.

Research Management Committee (RMC) The RMC met on: 27 March, 2 May, 11 June, 30 July, 29 August, 24 October, 21 November, 10 December Members Professor Anthony Burkitt (Chair), Dr Penny Allen, Professor Robyn Guymer, Professor Nigel Lovell, Dr Hamish Meffin, Professor Rob Shepherd and Professor Gregg Suaning. Ms Tamara Brawn (Secretary).

The Executive Team Mr Wayne Bahr (Finance Officer), Mr Greg Brewer (Quality Manager), Ms Yun-Xin Book (Research Administration Assistant), Ms Tamara Brawn (Project Manager), Professor Anthony Burkitt (Director), Ms Clare Chandler (Communications Officer), Dr Georgia Giannakis (Senior Research Assistant), Ms Veronika Gouskova (Marketing and Communications Manager), Mr John Hilton (Externals Coodinator), Ivan Mellado (Commercial Development Advisor), Ms Tracy Painter (Executive Officer), Ms Julie Anne Quinn (General Manager).

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 15

financial report Income Statement For the year ended 31 December 2013

Income

Notes

$

Australian Research Council Funding

8,945,157

Total Income

8,945,157

Expenditure

Research Operations

1

8,626,619

Business Operations

1,539,813

Total Expenditure

10,166,432

2013 Balance

-1,221,275

Carry Forward Balance from 2012

6,818,464

2

5,597,189

Balance of Funds to be carried forward

1. Research cash expenditure for 2013 includes equipment expenditure of $1,077,308.

2. Reported figures subject to verification by Internal Auditor.

16 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

staff and students Bionics Institute Researchers Ms Rebecca Argent BSc (Otago) Prof Peter Blamey BSc (Hons) (ANU), PhD (Monash) Mr Owen Burns BE (Mech) (Wollongong) Ms Lisa Cardamone BBNS (Hons) (Monash), MPhil (Melb) Dr James Fallon BE (Hons), BSc (Monash), PhD (Monash)

Dr Sharon Bentley BOptom (Melb), MOptom (Melb), PhD (Melb), MPH (Johns H.), FACO, FAAO

Dr Joel Villalobos BE (Elect Sys Eng) (Mexico), PhD (Melb)

Prof Jill Keeffe BA (New England), PhD (Melb)

A/Prof Chris Williams BSc (Waikato), MSc (Hons) (Waikato), PhD (Auckland)

Dr Chi Luu BOrth (Hons) (La Trobe), PhD (La Trobe), GradDip Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Melb)

Dr Jin Xu MD MMed, DipRad, MIR

Students

Dr Lisa Gillespie BSc (Hons) (Monash), PhD (Melb)

Ms Rosemary Cicione BE (La Trobe), MBioE (La Trobe)

Mr Mark Harrison BE (PIT), PGradDip (Digital Comp Eng) (RMIT)

Mr Gerald Dumm Diplom-Ingenieur (FH)

Ms Vanessa Maxim BBSc (La Trobe), Adv Dip Eng Tech (NMIT)

Ms Fleur O’Hare MPhil (Melb), BOrth (Hons) (La Trobe)

Mr Nicholas Sinclair BE (Hons) (Swinburne), BSc (Swinburne)

Ms Helen Feng

Dr Sam John B Med Elect (VIT, India), MElecE (La Trobe)

Dr Wilson Heriot MBBS, FRANZCO

Dr Mohit Shivdasani BE (Hons) (Mumbai), ME (La Trobe), PhD (La Trobe)

Dr Mark McCombe MBBS (Melb), FRANZCO Mr Shane McSweeney B.OT (UQ) Dr Nicholas Opie BE (Hons) / BSc (Monash), PhD (Melb)

Mr Ronald Leung BE (Melb)

Ms Mary Varsamidis BSc, BOrth (La Trobe)

Mr Patrick Thien BBS/BE (Monash)

Dr Jonathan Yeoh MBBS (Melb), FRANZCO (Melb)

Mr Shivy Yohanandan BSc (Melb)

Students

Prof Hugh McDermott BAppSc (Hons) (Melb), PhD (Melb)

Centre for Eye Research Australia

Ms Ceara McGowan BSc (Hons) (RMIT)

Researchers

Mr Felix Aplin (joint supervision with University of Melbourne) BSc (Hons) (ANU)

Ms Michelle McPhedran BBSc (La Trobe)

Dr Carla Abbott BOptom, PGCertOcTher, PhD (Melb)

Ms Lil Deverell BEd, Grad Dip in Orientation and Mobility

Mr Rodney Millard DipElecE

Dr Penny Allen MBBS (Melb), FRANZCO

NICTA

Dr David Nayagam BSc/BE (Hons) (Melb), PhD (Melb)

Dr Lauren Ayton BOptom (Melb), PhD (Melb), Grad Cert Oc Ther (UNSW), FACO

A/Prof Nick Barnes BSc (Hons) (Melb), PhD (Melb)

Dr Thushara Perera (until April) BE (La Trobe), ME (La Trobe), PhD (La Trobe) Dr Matt Petoe BSc (Auckland), BE (Hons) (UQ), PhD (UQ) Ms Alexia Saunders BSc (Hons) (Deakin) Prof Peter Seligman BE, PhD (Monash) Prof Rob Shepherd BSc, GradDipEd, PhD (Melb)

Researchers (Canberra)

Prof Jonathan Crowston MBBS (London), BSc (London), PhD (UCL), FRANZCP, FRCophth (UK) Dr Peter Dimitrov MBBS (Ukraine), BOrth (Hons) (La Trobe)

Ms Rebecca Dengate BEng (ANU) Dr Xuming He PhD (Toronto) Dr Yi Li PhD (Maryland)

Dr David Fabinyi MBBS, FRANZCO (Melb)

Dr Paulette Lieby (until October) PhD (Charles Darwin)

Dr Robert Finger MD, MIH, PhD (Germany)

Dr Chris McCarthy PhD (ANU)

Prof Robyn Guymer MBBS (Melb), PhD (Melb), FRANZCO

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 17

Ms Adele Scott BSc (ANU), BE (ANU) Mr Ashley Stacey BE CompSys (Canberra), MComp (Hons) (ANU) Dr Christiaan Stronks MSc (Nijmegen), PhD (Utrecht) Dr Janine Walker MA, MAPS, PhD (Melb)

Students (Canberra) Mr Khurrum Aftab MCompSc (Lahor) Mr David Feng BCompSc (Hons) (ANU) Mr Lachlan Horne BE (Adelaide), BMaCompSc (Adelaide) Mr Kyoungup Park MSc (Southern California) Mr Samunda Perera BSc (Hons) (Moratuwa) Mr Song Wang BEng (Harbin Inst of Tech), MPhil (HKU) Mr Tao Wang BE (South China)

Researchers (Melbourne) Mr Clive Boyd MSc (Melb) Dr Hamish Meffin BSc (Adel) (Hons), PhD (Sydney) Dr David Ng BEng (Singapore), MSc (Singapore), PhD (Nara) Prof Stan Skafidas BE (Hons) (Melb), BSc (Melb), MESc (Melb), PhD (Melb)

University of Melbourne, Anatomy and Neuroscience

Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Melbourne School of Engineering Researchers Dr Shun Bai BSc(China), PhD (Melb) Prof Anthony Burkitt BSc (Psychology) (ANU), BSc (ANU), PhD (Theoretical Physics) (Edinburgh) Dr Hosung Chun BE (Sydney), PhD (UNSW) Dr Matt Flax BSci (UNSW), BEng (UNSW), PhD (UNSW) A/Prof David Grayden BSc (Melb), BE (Melb), PhD (Melb) Mr Yuhua (Sam) He BSc (Nankai), MSc (Nankai) Dr Tatiana Kameneva BSc (Kazakhstan), MSc (Kazakhstan), PhD (Melb) Dr Omid Kavehei ME (Iran), PhD (Adel) Mr William Kentler BEng (Biomedical Engineering) (Swinburne) Mr Vijay Muktamath (until April) BE (India), ME (RMIT) Dr Bahman Tahayori BE (Shiraz), ME (Tehran), PhD (Melb) Dr Nhan Tran MSc (Kyung Hee), PhD (Melb) Dr Jiawei Yang BE (China), PhD (Melb) Dr Yuanyuan Yang BE (China), ME (China), PhD (UNSW)

Students

Researchers

Ms Kerry Halupka BEng (Hons) (Adel)

A/Prof Erica Fletcher BScOptom (Melb), MScOptom, PhD (Melb)

Ms Isabell Kiral-Kornek Dipl.-Ing. (Hanover)

Dr Ursula Greferath BSc (Hons) (Frankfurt), PhD (Frankfurt) Dr Kirstan Vessey BSc (Hons) (Melb), PhD (Melb)

Students

Mr Evgeni Sergeev BE (Elect&Electr) (Hons), BCM (Hons) (Western Australia) Mr Nick Venables BSc (Melb) Ms Parvin Zarei BSc (Tehran), MSc (AUT Tehran)

Ms Susmita Saha BScEng (Dhaka, Bangladesh)

18 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

Melbourne Materials Institute Researchers Dr Arman Ahnood MEng (Cambridge), PhD (University College London) Ms Mathilde Escudie MRI (Risk Management) (ENSi Bourges), MEng (Biomed) (UNSW) Dr Kate Fox BEng (Hons)/BSc (Flinders), PhD (UniSA), MIP (UTS) Dr Kumar Ganesan BSc (Hons) (Jaffna), MSc (Peradeniya), PhD (Canterbury) Dr David Garrett BSc (Hons) (Canterbury), PhD (Canterbury) Prof Steven Prawer BSc (Monash), PhD (Monash), DSc (Melb), FAA Dr Alastair Stacey BE (Hons) / BSc (Melb), PhD (Melb)

Students Mr Nick Apollo BSc (Bioeng) (Pitt. (US)) Ms Samantha Lichter BEng (Hons) / BSc (Monash) Ms Wei Tong BSc (USTC)

University of New South Wales, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering Researchers Dr Miganoosh Abramian (until November) MBiomedE, PhD (UNSW) Dr Amr Al Abed BMSc (Hons) (UNSW), MBioE (UNSW), PhD (UNSW) Mr Stefan Audick (until April) Dipl. Ing. (Krefeld) Dr Siwei Bai BE (SCUT), MEngSc (UNSW), PhD (UNSW) Mr Brandon Bosse (until July) BSc (UCSD), MSc (T端bingen) Mr Kain Bozzetto BE (UNSW), ME (UNSW) Mr Philip Byrnes-Preston BE (UNSW)

Dr Spencer Chen (visiting) BE (Hons) (UNSW), MBiomedE (UNSW), PhD (UNSW)

Prof Gregg Suaning BSc (California), MSc (California), PhD (UNSW)

National Vision Research Institute

Mr Chris Dodds BE (Hons) (UNSW), MBiomedE (UNSW)

Ms Vivienne Wong BE (Hons) (UNSW) MBiomedE (UNSW)

Dr Shaun Cloherty BE (QUT), PhD (UNSW)

A/Prof Socrates Dokos BE (Hons) (UNSW), PhD (UNSW)

Mr Jin Yu BE (Biomedical) (Hons) (USyd), BMedSc (USyd)

Dr Alex Hadjinicolaou BE, B Ma. Comp Sci (Adel), PhD (ANU)

Students

Prof Michael Ibbotson BSc, PhD (Univ of London)

Ms Silvia Duo BS (UNSW) Mr David Favaloro BE (Hons) (UNSW)

Mr Ulises Aregueta Robles BSc (Mexico), MSc (Mexico)

Dr Rylie Green BE (UNSW), ME (UNSW), PhD (UNSW)

Mr Calvin D. Eiber BSc (Case Western Reserve University)

Dr Thomas Guenther (until June) MSc (IMTEK, Freiburg), PhD (UNSW)

Mr Tianruo Guo BE (Hons) (Beijing), ME (UNSW)

Ms Cherry Ying Yan Ho BEng (UNSW), ME (UNSW) Ms Wenqi Huang ME (UNSW) Dr Natalie James BSc (Hons) (USyd), MBiomedE (UNSW), PhD (UNSW), MBA (Macquarie) Dr Louis Jung (until November 2013) BTeleE (UNSW), ME (UNSW), PhD (UNSW) Mr Sergej Kolke DipMechE (RUB) Mr Tom Kulaga BEng (Hons) (UNSW), BSc (UNSW) Prof Nigel Lovell BE (Hons) (UNSW), PhD (UNSW) Dr Paul Matteucci (until July) BE, PhD (Genova) Mr Apoorv Mintri (until March) BE (Sydney) Mr Stephen Mow BE (Sydney) Mr Mo Nikro BE Dip Eng. Prac. (UTS) Mr Sunil Patel BE (Hons) (UNSW) MBiomedE (UNSW) Mr Tristan Sander (until September) BE (Hons) (UNSW) Mr Ahmad Shah Idil BS (UNSW)

Researchers

Dr Brendan O’Brien (until May) BA (N. Iowa), PhD (UW) Dr Yu-Shan Hung BSc, MSc (NCHU), PhD (ANU)

Students Mr Raymond Wong BE (McMaster), MSc (New Brunswick)

Mr Nitzan Shany BE (Hons)

Mr Matias Maturana BSc (Melb), BA (Melb)

Mr Tao Wang BE (China)

BVA Executive Team

Mr Chih Yu (John) Yang BEE/BMedSc (Hons) (USyd) Mr Shijie Yin (until March) BE (Hons) (Auckland), PhD (UNSW) Mr Marc Patrick Zapf BSc (Hons) (Uni Ulm), MSc (Hons) (Freiburg)

Ms Tamara Brawn Project Manager, BA (La Trobe), BBSc (Hons) (La Trobe), Grad Dip Ed (Melb), MBA (UNSW)

School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications

Ms Clare Chandler Communications Officer, BA (Hons) (Melb)

Researcher Dr Torsten Lehmann MScEE PhD (Denmark)

Dr Georgia Giannakis Senior Research Assistant, BSc Hons. (Monash), PhD (Melb)

University of Western Sydney Researchers Dr Morven Cameron BSc (Manchester), PhD (Manchester)

Dr Andrew Woolley BSc (Indiana University), PhD (Purdue University)

Mr Greg Brewer Quality Manager, MBiomedE (UNSW) Ms Yun-Xin Book Research Administration Assistant, BSc (Melb), MSc (Melb)

Mr JiaJia Zhang BE (China)

Prof John Morley BSc (La Trobe), MSc (Melb), PhD (Melb)

Mr Wayne Bahr Finance Officer, BCom (Tas)

Ms Veronika Gouskova Marketing and Communications Manager, BCom (Melb), MCom (RMIT) Mr John Hilton Externals Coordinator, BSc, BE Mech (Hons), MEngSc (Sydney) Mr Ivan Mellado Commercial Development Advisor, BBus (Monash) Ms Tracy Painter Executive Officer Ms Julie Anne Quinn General Manager, BAppSc (RMIT), Grad Dip Mktg (Monash), ME (RMIT)

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 19

Contributing Research Collaborators Individuals Dr Larry Abel Dept of Optometry and Vision Sciences University of Melbourne Dr Benedicta Ahatari Department of Physics La Trobe University Professor Ian Bailey School of Optometry University of California – Berkeley Professor Mark Cook Chair of Medicine and Professor and Director of Neurology at St Vincent’s Hospital Professor Nick Donaldson University College London Mr Irfan Durmo Cochlear Ltd Dr Sue Finch Statistical Consulting Centre University of Melbourne Dr Shelley Fried Harvard Medical School Dr Barry Gow Senior Visiting Fellow University of New South Wales Dr Alan Heritage Production Microbiologist: Cleanroom Device Manufacture and Sterilisation Cochlear Ltd Professor Peter Hunter Director, Bioengineering Institute University of Auckland

Professor Penny McKelvie Anatomical Pathology, St Vincent’s Hospital Professor Elinor McKone Research School of Psychology Australian National University Professor Gregory Murphy School of Public Health and Human Biosciences, Department of Public Health La Trobe University Dr Juan Ordonez IMTEK Uni-Freiburg Dr Sue Pierce Veterinary Surgeon St Vincent’s Hospital Professor Andrew Ruys University of Sydney UNSW Professor Joseph Rizzo Boston Retinal Implant Project Director of the NeuroOphthalmology Service Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Dr. Cesar M. Salinas-La Rosa Anatomical Pathology, St Vincent’s Hospital Dr. Martin Schuettler IMTEK Uni-Freiburg Dr Ross Smith Research Fellow University of Adelaide Professor Bruce Thomas University of Adelaide

Professor Gregg Suaning (right) receives the UNSW Innovation Award.

20 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

Dr David Tsai Columbia University Dr Ehsan Vaghefi Research Fellow, Bioengineering Institute University of Auckland Dr Anne Vanhoestenberghe University College London Haiping Wang Silanna Semiconductor Professor Richard Williams Director of Anatomical Pathology, St Vincent’s Hospital

Organisations Adept Turnkey The Australian Inherited Retinal Disease Register Boston Retinal Implant Project Cochlear Limited Mira Image Mobius Medical Monash Vision Group Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick RayMax Lasers Sabre Medical Stella Connect St Vincent’s Pathology and Histology Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative Waterfall Commercialisation Group

publications Published Books, Book Chapters or Other Publications 1. Yin, S., Dokos, S., and Lovell, N.H. (2013). “Bidomain Modeling of Neural Tissue.” Neural Engineering, He, B. (Ed), Springer US, pp. 389-404.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications and Full Conference Papers 1. Al Abed, A., Guo, T., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos. S. (2013). “Optimisation of ionic models to fit tissue action potentials: Application to 3D atrial modelling.” Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine, Article ID 951234, doi: dx.doi. org/10.1155/2013/951234, 16 pages.

2. Al Abed, A., Lovell, N.H., Suaning, G., and Dokos, S. (2013). “A Continuum Neuronal Tissue Model Based on a Two-Compartmental Representation of Cells.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 6543-6546.

3. Al Abed, A., Osanloo, S., Suaning, G. J., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. (2013).

“A Computational Model of Electrical Activation of Retinal Tissue under Various Electrode Configurations and Implant Sites.” Australian Biomedical Engineering Conference (ABEC), Sydney, Australia, 13th – 16th October 2013, 4 pages.

4. Apollo, N.V., Grayden, D.B., Burkitt, A.N., Meffin, H., and Kameneva, T. (2013). “Modeling intrinsic electrophysiology of all amacrine cells: Preliminary results.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 6551-6554.

5. Ayton, L.N., Guymer, R.H., and Luu, C.D. (2013). “Choroidal thickness profile in retinitis pigmentosa” Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, vol 41, no 4, pp. 396-403.

6. Ayton, L.N., Luu, C.D., Allen, P.J., and Guymer, R.H. (2013). “Bionic Eyes: Present Realities and Future Aspirations.” Australian Optometry, September Issue, pp. 43-45.

7. Ayton, L.N., Luu, C.D., Allen, P.J., and Guymer, R.H. (2013). “The importance of multi-disciplinary collaborations in the future of bionic vision.” Expert Review of Ophthalmology, vol 8, no 1, pp. 9-11.

8. Ayton, L.N., Luu, C.D., Bentley, S.A., Allen, P.J., and Guymer, R.H. (2013). “Image Processing for Visual Prostheses: A Clinical Perspective.”

IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Melbourne, Australia, 15th – 18th September 2013, pp. 1540-1544.

9. Baek, S.C., Green, R.A., and PooleWarren, L.A. (2013). “Effects of dopants on the biomechanical properties of conducting polymer films on platinum electrodes.”

Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, Epub before print 11th September 2013, doi: 10.1002/jbm.a.34945 10. Barnes, N. (2013). “An Overview of Vision Processing in Implantable Vision Prosthetic Vision.” IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Melbourne, Australia, 15th – 18th September 2013, pp. 1532-1535.

11. Cameron, M.A., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., Morley, J.W. (2013). “Electrical stimulation of inner retinal neurons in wild-type and retinally degenerate (rd/rd) mice.” PLoS ONE, vol 8, no 7, e68882, 12 pages.

12. Chun, H., Kavehei, O., Tran, N., and Skafidas, E. (2013). “A Flexible Biphasic Pulse Generating and Accurate Charge Balancing Stimulator with a 1uW Neural Recording Amplifier.” IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Beijing, China, 19th – 23rd May 2013, pp. 1885-1888.

13. Chun, H., Yang, Y., and Lehmann, T. (2013). “Safety Ensuring Retinal Prosthesis with Precise Charge Balance and Low Power Consumption.” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, Epub before print 15th May 2013, doi: 10.1109/TBCAS.2013.2257171, 11 pages.

14. Eiber, C.D., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2013). “Attaining higher resolution visual prosthetics: a review of the factors and

limitations.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 10, no 1, e011002, 17 pages.

15. Felic, G.K., Ng, D., and Skafidas, E. (2013). “Investigation of FrequencyDependent Effects in Inductive Coils for Implantable Electronics.”

IEEE Transaction on Magnetics, vol 49, no 4, pp. 1353-1360.

16. Feng, D., and McCarthy, C. (2013).

“Enhancing scene structure in prosthetic vision using iso-disparity contour pertubance maps.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 5283-5286.

17. Fox, K. (2013). “Ethical considerations for engineers working in cybernetic implants.” IEEE International Conference on Cybernetics (CYBCONF), Lausanne, Switzerland, 13th – 15th June 2013, pp. 273-277.

18. Goodarzy, F., and Skafidas, E. (2013). “A fully integrated 200 µW, 40pJ/b wireless transmitter for implanted medical devices and neural prostheses.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 3246-3249.

19. Green, R., Guenther, T., Jeschke, C., Jaillon, A., Yu, J., Dueck, W., Lim, W., Henderson, W., Vanhoestenberghe, A., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning G.J. (2013). “Integrated Electrode and High Density Feedthrough System for Chip-Scale Implantable Bionics.” Biomaterials, vol 34, no 26, pp. 6109-6118.

20. Green, R.A., Matteucci, P.B., Hassarati, R.T., Giraud, B., Dodds, C.W.D., Chen, S.C., Byrnes-Preston, P.J., Suaning, G.J., Poole-Warren, L.A., and Lovell, N.H. (2013). “Performance of conducting polymer electrodes for stimulating neuroprosthetics.”

Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 10, no 1, e016009, 11 pages.

21. Guenther, T., Kong, C., Lu. H., Svehla, M.J., Lovell, N.H., Ruys, A., and Suaning, G.J. (2013). “Pt-AI2O3 interfaces in co-fired ceramics for use in miniaturized neuroprosthetic implants.” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research: Part B – Applied

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 21

Biomaterials, Epub before print 16th September 2013, doi: 10.1002/ jbm.b.33027, 8 pages.

22. Guo, T., Tsai, D., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G., Lovell, N.H. And Dokos, S. (2013). “Influence of Cell Morphology in a Computational Model of ON and OFF Retinal Ganglion Cells.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 4553-4556.

23. Guo, T., Tsai, D., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. (2013). “Cell-specific Modeling of Retinal Ganglion Cell Electrical Activity.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 6539-6542.

24. Guo, T., Tsai, D., Sovilj, S., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. (2013). “Influence of Active Dendrites on Firing Patterns in a Retinal Ganglion Cell Model.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 4557-4560.

25. Habib, A.G., Cameron, M.A., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Morley, J.W. (2013). “Spatially restricted electrical activation of retinal ganglion cells in the rabbit retina by hexpolar electrode return configuration.”

Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 10, no 3, e036013, 8 pages.

26. Halpern, M.E. (2013). “Maximum reduction in peak voltage using stepped currents to deliver charge to RC circuits.” IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, vol 60, no 7, pp. 407-411.

27. Horne, L., Alvarez, J., and Barnes, N. “Exploiting Sparsity for Real Time Video Labelling”, in Computer Vision Technology: from Earth to Mars, Workshop at the International Conference on Computer Vision, Sydney, Australia, Dec, 2013.

(Best Paper) 28. John, S.E., Shivdasani, M.N., Williams, C.E., Morley, J.W., Shepherd, R.K., Rathbone, G.D. and Fallon, J.B. (2013). “Suprachoroidal electrical stimulation: Effects of stimulus pulse parameters on visual cortical responses.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 10, no 5, e056011, 12 pages.

29. Jung, L.H., Lehmann, T., Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2013). “Semistatic threshold-triggered delay elements for low power operation.”

Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, vol 75, no 3, pp. 435-445.

30. Jung, L.H., Shany, N., Emperle, A., Lehmann, T., Byrnes-Preston, P.J., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2013).

“Design of safe two-wire interface driven chip scale neurostimulator for visual prosthesis.” IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol 48, no 9, pp. 2217-2229.

31. Kiral-Kornek, F.I., Savage, C.O., O’Sullivan-Greene, E., Burkitt, A.N., and Grayden, D.B. “Embracing the Irregular: A Patient-Specific Image Processing Strategy for Visual Prostheses.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 3563-3566.

32. Matteucci, P.B., Chen, S.C., Tsai, D., Dodds, C.W.D., Dokos, S., Morley, J.W., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2013) “Current steering in retinal stimulation via a quasimonopolar stimulation paradigm.” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 54, no 6, pp. 4307-4320.

33. Maturana, M.I., Grayden, D.B., Burkitt, A.N., Meffin, H. and Kameneva, T. (2013). “Multi-compartment retinal ganglion cells response to high frequency bi-phasic pulse train stimulation: Simulation results.”

35th Annual International Conference of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 69-72.

34. Maturana, M., Kameneva, T., Burkitt, A., Meffin, H., and Grayden, D. (2013).

“The effect of morphology upon electrophysiological responses of retinal ganglion cells: simulation results.” Journal of Computational Neuroscience, Epub before print 9th July 2013, doi: 10.1007/s10827013-0463-7.

35. Maturana, M., Wong, R.C.S., Cloherty, S.L., Ibbotson, M.R., Hadjinicolaou.

A.E., Burkitt, A.N., Meffin, H., Grayden, D.B., O’Brien, B.J., and Kameneva, T. (2013). “Retinal Ganglion Cells Electrophysiology: The Effect of Cell Morphology on Impulse Waveform.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July, pp. 2583-2586.

22 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

36. McCarthy, C., Feng, D., and Barnes, N. (2013). “Augmenting intensity to enhance scene structure in prosthetic vision.” IEEE Workshop on Multimodal and alternative Perception for Visually Impaired People (MAP4VIP), San Jose, USA, 15th – 19th July 2013, pp. 1-6.

37. Meffin, H., Tahayori, B., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. (2013).

“Internal Inconsistencies in Models of Electrical Stimulation in Neural Tissue.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 5946-5949.

38. Moghadam, G.K., Wilke, R., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. (2013). “Quasimonopolar stimulation: A novel electrode design configuration for performance optimization of a retinal neuroprothesis.” PLoS ONE, vol 8, no 8, e73130, 12 pages.

39. Nayagam, D.A.X., McGowan, C.C., Villalobos, J., Williams, R.A., Salinas-La Rosa, C.M., McKelvie, P., Lo, I., Basa, M., Tan, J., and Williams, C.E. (2013). “Techniques for Processing Eyes Implanted With a Retinal Prosthesis for Localized Histopathological Analysis.” Journal of Visualised Experiments, issue 78, doi: 10.3791/50411, 11 pages 40. Ng, D.C., and Skafidas, E. (2013).

“Coupling invariant inductive link for wireless power delivery to a retinal prosthesis.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 3250-3253.

41. O’Brien, E.E., Greferath, U., and Fletcher, E.L. (2013). “The effect of photoreceptor degeneration on ganglion cell morphology.” Journal of Comparative Neurology, Epub before print 31st October 2013, doi: 10.1002/cne.23487.

42. Opie, N.L., Lovell, N.H., Suaning, G.J., Preston, P., and Dokos, S. (2013).

“Current steering for high resolution retinal implants.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 2760-2763.

43. Patel, S., Guenther, T., Dodds, C.W.D., Kolke, S., Privat, K.L., Matteucci, P.B., and Suaning, G. (2013). “Materials Design Considerations Involved in the Fabrication of Implantable Bionics by Metallization of

Ceramic Substrates.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 759-762.

44. Perera, S., and Barnes, N. (2013).

“1-Point Rigid Motion Estimation and Segmentation with a RGB-D Camera.” Proceeding of International Conference on Digital Image Computing: Techniques and applications (DICTA), Hobart, Australia, 26th – 28th November, 8 pages.

45. Savage, C.O., Grayden, D.B., Meffin, H., and Burkitt, A.N. (2013).

“Optimized single pulse stimulation strategy for retinal implants.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 10, no 1, e016003, 9 pages.

46. Shen, F., Shen, C., and Van den Hengel, A. (2013). “Approximate least trimmed sum of squares fitting and applications in image analysis.” IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol 22, no 5, pp. 1836-1847.

47. Shepherd, R.K., Shivdasani, M.N., Nayagam, D.A.X., Williams, C.E., and Blamey, P.J. (2013). “Visual prostheses for the blind.” Trends in Biotechnology, vol 31, no 10, pp. 562-571.

48. Tahayori, B., and Dokos, S. (2013). “Optimal Stimulus Profiles for Neuroprosthetic Devices: Monophasic versus Biphasic Stimulation.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013, pp. 5978-5981.

49. Villalobos, J., Nayagam, D.A.X., Allen, P.J., McKelvie, P., Luu, C.D., Ayton, L.N., Freemantle, A.L., McPhedran, M.E., Basa, M. , McGowan, C.C., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. (2013). “A wide-field suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis is stable and well tolerated following chronic implantation.” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 54, no 5, pp. 3751-3762.

50. Wang, T., He, X., and Barnes, N. (2013). “Glass object segmentation by label transfer on joint depth and appearance manifolds.” IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Melbourne, Australia, 15th – 18th September, 5 pages.

51. Wang, T., He, X., and Barnes, N. (2013). “Learning structured hough voting for joint object detection and occlusion reasoning.” IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Oregon, USA, 23rd – 28th June 2013, pp. 1790-1797.

52. Yang, J., Bai, S., Tran, N., Chun, H., Kavehei, O., Yang, Y., Skafidas, E., Halpern, M., Ng, D.C., and Muktamath, V. (2013). “A chargebalanced 4-wire interface for the interconnections of biomedical implants.” IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS), Rotterdam, Netherlands, 31st October – 2nd November 2013, pp. 202-205.

53. Yang, Y., Chun, H., and Lehmann, T. (2013). “Dual-stacked current recycling linear regulators with 48% power saving for biomedical implants.” IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, vol 60, no 7, pp. 1946-1958.

54. Yang, J., and Skafidas, E. (2013).

“A low power MICS band phaselocked loop for high resolution retinal prosthesis” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, vol 7, no 4, pp. 513-525.

55. Zapf, M.P.H., Matteucci, P.B., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G. (2013).

“Smartphones as Image Processing Systems for Prosthetic Vision.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July, pp. 3690-3693.

Peer-Reviewed Internationally Recognised Conference Publications: Posters, Papers (other than full conference papers) and Presentations (other than invited presentations) 1. Ahnood, A. “Ultrananocrystalline diamond-CMOS device integration route for high acuity retinal prostheses.” 4th Asia-Pacific Symposium on NanoBionics, Melbourne, Australia, 14th-15th November 2013.

2. Ahnood, A., Escudie, M.C., Ganesan, K., Fox, K., Garrett, D., Stacey, A., and Prawer, S. (2013). “Flip-chip bonding for high acuity electrode density epi-retinal prosthesis.”

3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillips Island, Australia, 17th-20th November 2013.

3. Allen, P.J., Yeoh, J., McCombe, M., Heriot, W.J., Luu, C.D., Ayton, L.N., Nayagam, D.A., Shepherd R.K., Blamey, P.J., and Guymer, R.H. “Bionic Vision Australia Implantation of a suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis - results for the first participants.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

4. Apollo, N.V., and Kameneva, T. “Modelling potassium currents in all amacrine cells.” NeuroEng 2013: Australian Workshop on Computational Neuroscience, Melbourne, Australia, 30th – 31st January 2013.

5. Ayton, L., Luu, C., Allen, P., Opie, N., Villalobos, J., Williams, C., and Guymer, R. “Stability of a suprachoroidal visual prosthesis.”

International Symposium on Visual Prosthetics, Artificial Vision 2013, Aachen, Germany, 8th – 9th November 2013.

6. Ayton, L.N., Sinclair, N., Blamey, P.J., Perera, T., Nayagam, D.A.X., Dimitrov, P.N., Allen, P.J., Varsamidis, M., Guymer, R.H., and Luu, C.D. “Decrease in Electrode-Retina Distance over Time and Its Effect on Electrical Impedances in a Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis.”

Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

7. Blamey, P.J. “Psychophysical and vision processing results with a prototype suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillips Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

8. Blamey, P.J., Sinclair. N.C., Slater, K., McDermott, H.J., Perera, T., Dimitrov, P.N., Varsamidis, M., Ayton, L.N., Guymer, R.H., and Luu, C.D. “Psychophysics of a suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

9. Burns, O., Briggs, R.J., Allen, P.J., Nayagam, D.A.X., Villalobos, J., Saunders, A.L., McPhedran, M., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. “Development of a surgical tool for implantation of a one piece retinal prosthesis.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Philip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 23

10. Cameron, M.A., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Morley, J.W. “Examination of voltage-activated currents elicited by external electrical stimulation.”

33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

11. Cicone, R., Shivdasani, M.N., Fallon, J.B., Rathbone, G.D., Williams, C.E., “Spatiotemportal interations in the visual cortex using paired electrical stimulation in the retina.” 33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

12. Cloherty, S.L., Hietanen, M.A., and Ibbotson, M.R. “Statistical criteria for assessing phase sensitivity of visual cortical neurons.” NeuroEng 2013: Australian Workshop on Computational Neuroscience, Melbourne, Australia, 30th – 31st January 2013.

13. Dumm, G., Fallon, J.B., Williams, C.E., and Shivdasani, M.N. “Intermediate Phosphene by Current Steering In Retinal Prostheses.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

14. Escudie, M., Ahnood, A., Fox, K., Ganesan, K., Garrett, D., Stacey, A., Prawer, S., and Meffin, H. “Lifetime of Indium Bumps in Epi-retinal Prosthesis” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

15. Fletcher, E.L., Vessey, K.A., Jobling, A., Greferath, U., Gu, B., Wiley, J.S., and Guymer, R. “The significance of purines in degenerative conditions of the retina.” Bosch Institute 2013 ASM: Visual Neuroscience: Modern Challenges and Australian Pioneers, Sydney, Australia, 27th – 28th June 2013.

16. Fletcher, E.L., Vessey, K.A., Waugh, M., and Jobling, A.I. “The role of CX3CR1 signalling in regulating photoreceptor integrity.” 33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

17. Fox, K., Allen, P.J., Yeoh, J., Burns, O., Opie, N., Meffin, H., McPhedran, M., Saunders, A., Garrett, D., Ahnood, A., Ganesan, K., Stacey, A., Fabryni, D., Nayagam, D., and Prawer, S. “Epiretinal prosthesis fixation: Benchtop to surgery.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

18. Fox, K., Apollo, N.V., Burns, O., Tong, W., Tran, P., Turnley, A., Ganesan, K., Garrett, D.J., Ahnood, A., Meffin, H., and Prawer, S. “Neodymium as a biomaterial.” 22nd Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering (ASBTE), Adelaide, Australia, 2nd – 5th April 2013.

19. Ganesan, K., Garrett, D.J., Fox, K., Lichter, S., Meffin, H., and Prawer, S. “Nanostructured diamond microelectrodes for medical applications.” SPIE Micro+Nano Materials, Devices, and Applications, Melbourne, Australia, 8th – 11th November 2013.

20. Ganesan, K., Garrett, D.J., Shivdasani, M.N., Nayagam, D.A., Villalobos, J., Meffin, H., Fox, K.E., Lichter, S.G., and Shepherd, R.K. “A monolithic diamond microelectrode array fabricated for a high acuity retinal prosthesis.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

21. Garrett, D.J., Ganesan, K., Ahnood, A., Shivdasani, M., Tong, W., Fox, K., Meffin, H., and Prawer, S. “An All-Diamond, Hermetic Electrical Feedthrough Array for a Retinal Prosthesis.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Philip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

22. Garrett, D.J., Ganesan, K., Fox, K., Lichter, S., Meffin, H., and Prawer, S. “A Sparkle in the Eye: A High Acuity Retinal Prosthesis for the Blind Fabricated form Diamond.”

6th International Conference on Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Auckland, New Zealand, 11th – 15th February 2013.

23. Green, R.A., Matteucci, P., Hassarati, R., Suaning, G.J., Martens, P., Poole-Warren, L.A., and Lovell, N.H. “Electrode technologies for improving implant safety.” Australian Biomedical Engineering Conference (ABEC), Sydney, Australia, 13th – 16th October 2013.

24. Greferath, U., O’Brien, E.E., and Fletcher, E.L. “Remodelling in advanced retinal degeneration in rd1 mice.” 33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

25. Guo, T., Tsai, D., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. “Influence of active dendrites on retinal ganglion cell firing pattern: A modelling study.” NeuroEng 2013: Australian Workshop on Computational

24 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

Neuroscience, Melbourne, Australia, 30th – 31st January 2013.

26. Guo, T., Tsai, D., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. “A Generic Modelling Approach for Reconstructing Retinal Ganglion Cell Electrical Activity.”

Australian Biomedical Engineering Conference (ABEC), Sydney, Australia, 13th – 16th October 2013.

27. Hadjinicolaou, A.E., Savage, C.O., Garrett, D.J., Apollo, N.V., Cloherty, S.L., Ibbotson, M.R., and O’Brien, B.J. “Optimal Waveform Parameters for Extracellular Activation of RGCs Using a Diamond Electrode.” 33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

28. Hadjinicolaou, A.E., Savage, C.O., Garrett, D.J., Apollo, N.V., Cloherty, S.L., Ibbotson, M.R., and O’Brien, B.J. “Optimal waveform parameters for extracellular activation of RGCs using a diamond electrode.”

Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

29. Ho, T., Vessey, K.A., Jobling, A.I., and Fletcher, E.L. “The P2X4 receptor and NTPDase1/CD39 enzyme are expressed in the mouse retina and are upregulated in retinal degeneration.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

30. Ibbotson, M.R., Cloherty, S.L., and Hietanen, M.A. “Finding the Simple Cell Within.” Bosch Institute 2013 ASM: Visual Neuroscience: Modern Challenges and Australian Pioneers, Sydney, Australia, 27th – 28th June 2013.

31. John, S., Shivdasani, M.N., Fallon, J.B., Rathhbone, G. Williams, C.W., “Suprachoroidal electrical stimulation: assessing efficient of repetitive electrical stimulation.”

33rd Annual Meeting Australian Neuroscience Society, January 2013 32. John, S.E., Shivdasani, M.N., Williams, C.E., Morley, J.W., Rathbone, G.D., and Fallon, J.B. “Repetitive Electrical Stimulation: Neural Responses in Cat Visual Cortex to Suprachoroidal Electrical Stimulation.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

33. Leung, R.T., Nayagam, D.A., Williams, R.A., Allen, P.J., Salinas-La Rosa, C.M., Luu, C.D., Ayton. L.N., Basa,

M. Shepherd, R.K., and Williams C.E. “The Feasibility of Explanting a Suprachoroidal Electrode Array in a Feline Model.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Vision in Research and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013 34. Leung, R., Nayagam, D.A.X, Williams, R., Allen, Salinas-La Rosa, P., Luu, C., Shivdasani, M., Ayton, L., Basa, M, Yeoh, J., Saunders, A., Shepherd, R.K., Williams, C., “Can suprachoroidal arrays be safely replaced?” The Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery Research Week, Melbourne, Australia, August 2013.

35. Leung, R.T., Nayagam, D.A.X., Williams, R.A., Allen, P.J., Salinas-La Rosa, C.M., Luu, C.D., Ayton, L.N., Basa, M., Yeoh, J., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. “Explanation of Suprachoroidal Retinal Prostheses: A Safety Study.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Philip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

36. Leung, R.T., Nayagam, D.A.X., Williams, R.A., Allen, P.J., Salinas-La Rosa, C.M., Luu, C.D., Ayton, L.N., Basa, M., Yeoh, J., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. “Safety and Efficacy of Replacing a Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Philip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

37. Lieby, P., Scott, A.F., Barnes, N., Stacey, A., and Walker, J.G. “Evaluating Lanczos2 Image Filtering for Visual Acuity in Simulated Prosthetic Vision.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

38. Lovell, N.H., Green, R.A., and Suaning, G.J. “Neural interfacing electrodes: Limitations and new approaches.” Biomedizinische Technik (BMT), Graz, Austria, 19th – 21st September 2013.

39. Maturana, M.I., Wong, R., Kameneva, T., Cloherty, S.L., Ibbotson, M.R., Hadjinicolaou, A.E., Grayden, D.B., Burkitt, A.N., Meffin, H., and O’Brien, B.J. “Predicting the location of the axon initial segment using spike waveform analysis: Simulations of retinal ganglion cell physiology.”

Australian College of Optometry Conference 2013, Melbourne, Australia, 18th – 19th October 2013.

40. Maturana, M.I., Grayden, D.B., Ibbotson, M.R., and Kameneva, T. “Identifying cells using features in the extracellular action potential waveform.” 3rd International

Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

41. Maturana, M.I., Kameneva, T., Meffin, H., Burkitt, A.N., and Grayden, D.B. “Electrophysiological variations in retinal ganglion cells: Effect of morphology.” NeuroEng 2013: Australian Workshop on Computational Neuroscience, Melbourne, Australia, 30th – 31st January 2013.

42. Maturana, M.I., Kameneva, T., Turpin, A., and McKendrick, A.M. “Modelling Glacomous retinal ganglion cells.” NeuroEng 2013: Australian Workshop on Computational Neuroscience, Melbourne, Australia, 30th – 31st January 2013.

43. Maturana, M.I., Wong, R., Kameneva, T., Cloherty, S.L., Ibbotson, M.R., Hadjinicolaou, A.E., Grayden, D.B., Burkitt, A.N., Meffin, H., and O’Brien, B.J. “Predicting the location of the axon initial segment using spike waveform analysis: Simulations of retinal ganglion cell physiology.”

22nd Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS 2013), Paris, France, 13th – 18th July 2013.

44. McCarthy, C.D., Feng, D., Walker, J.G., Lieby, P., Scott, A.F., and Barnes, N. “Vision Processing Strategies for Safe and Efficient Navigation with a Retinal Prosthesis.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Philip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

45. McGowan, C., Williams, R., Durmo, I., Salinas-La Rosa, C., McKelvie, P., Basa, M., Lo, I., Tan, J., Wise, A., Williams, C., Shepherd, R.K., and Nayagam, D.A.X. “Histological Methods for Evaluating the Safety of Retinal Prostheses.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Philip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

46. McKone, E., Irons, J., He, X., Barnes, N., Provis, J., Dumbleton, R., Ivanovici, C., and Kwa, A. “Caricaturing improves face recognition in simulated age-related macular degeneration.” 13th Visual Science Society Annual Meeting, Florida, USA, 10th – 15th May 2013.

47. Meffin, H., Tahayori, B., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. “A bidomain approach to predict the activation map of the retina in visual prostheses.” 33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

48. Meffin, H., Tahayori, B., O’SullivanGreene, E., Burkitt, A.N., and

Grayden, D.B. “Spatial Shaping of Neural Activity Using Electrical Stimulation.” 22nd Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS 2013), Paris, France, 13th – 18th July 2013.

49. Meffin, H., Tahayori, B., Sergeev, E.N., Burkitt, A.N., and Grayden, D.B. “Mean field formalism for electrical stimulation of nerve fibre bundles.” NeuroEng 2013: Australian Workshop on Computational Neuroscience, Melbourne, Australia, 30th – 31st January 2013.

50. Meffin, H., Tahayori, B., Sergeev, E.N., O’Sullivan, E., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. “Spatial shaping of neural activity for neuroprosthetic devices.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillips Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

51. Nayagam, D.A.X., Williams, R.A., Shivdasani, M.N., Salinas-La Rosa, C.M., Allen, P.J., McGowan, C.C., Luu, C.D., Ayton, L.N., Williams, C.E., and Shepherd, R.K. “Chronic Electrical Stimulation of the Retina via Suprachoroidal Electrodes is Safe.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

52. Nikro, M., Mow, S., Dodds, C.W.D., and Guenther, T. “Fabrication of Miniaturised Neurostimulator Encapsulations.” Australian Biomedical Engineering Conference (ABEC), Sydney, Australia, 13th – 16th October 2013.

53. O’Brien, E.E., Greferath, U., and Fletcher, E.L. “Morphological changes occur in some ganglion cells in retinitis pigmentosa.” 33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

54. Perera, T., Sinclair, N.C., Petoe, M.A., and Blamey, P.J. “Graphical user interface for bionic eye psychophysics.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

55. Petoe, M.A., McCarthy, C.D., Sinclair, N.C., Shivdasani, M.N., Lieby, P., Scott, A.F., Stacey, A., Barnes, M.N., and Blamey. P.J. “Optimising Electrode Stimulation and Image Processing Parameters in a Suprachoroidal Retinal Prostheses Using a Pattern Recognition Task.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 25

56. Poole-Warren, L.A., Martens, P., Goding, J., Lim, K., Lovell, N.H., and Green, R.A. “Tissue engineered electrodes for improved neural tissue communication.” Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS-AP), Shanghai, China, 23rd – 26th October 2013.

57. Saha, S., Greferath, U., Nowell, C., Grayden, D.B., Burkitt, A.N., and Fletcher, E.L. “Changes in Synaptic Inputs to Retinal Ganglion Cells during Retinal Degeneration.” 33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

58. Saunders, A.L., Williams, C.E., Heriot, W., Briggs, R.J., Yeoh, J., Nayagam, D.A.X., McCombe, M., Villalobos, J., Burns, O., Luu, C.D., Ayton, L.N., McPhedran, M., Opie, N.L., McGowan, C., Shepherd, R.K., and Allen, P.J. “Development of a Simple Surgical Procedure for Implantation of a Retinal Prosthesis.”

3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

59. Sergeev, E.N., Meffin, H., Tahayori, B., Burkitt, A.N., and Grayden, D.B. “A model of retinal ganglion cell axon activation thresholds for suprachoroidal retinal prostheses.”

NeuroEng 2013: Australian Workshop on Computational Neuroscience, Melbourne, Australia, 30th – 31st January 2013.

60. Sergeev, E.N., Meffin, H., Tahayori, B., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. “Effect of soma polarization on electrical stimulation thresholds of retinal ganglion cells.” 6th International IEEE EMBS Neural Engineering Conference, San Diego, USA, 6th – 8th November 2013.

61. Shivdasani, M.N., Garrett, D.J., Nayagam, D.A.X., Allen, P.J., Saunders, A., McPhedran, M.E., Burns, O., Meffin, H., Prawer, S. , and Shepherd, R.K. “Epiretinal stimulation using ultrananocrystalline diamond electrodes.” 33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

62. Shivdasani, M.N., Garrett, D.J., Nayagam, D.A.X., Villalobos, J., Allen, P.J., Saunders, A., McPhedran, M.E., McGowan, C.C., Meffin, H. and Shepherd, R.K. “In Vivo Electrical Stimulation of a Retinal Prosthesis Containing Conductive Diamond Electrodes.” Annual Meeting of the

Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

63. Shivdasani, M.N., Sinclair, N.C., Dimitrov, P.N., Varsamidis, M., Perera, T., McDermott, H.J., and Blamey, P.J. “Optimising Stimulus Parameters as a Function of Perceptual Thresholds in a Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

64. Sinclair, N.C., Perera, T., Shivdasani, M.N., Dimitrov, P.N., Varsamidis, M., and Blamey, P.J. “Shape, Location and Overlap of Phosphenes Elicited Using a Suprachoroidal Electrode Array.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

65. Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. “Focal activation of retinal neurons from supra-choroidal space.”

International Symposium on Visual Prosthetics, Artificial Vision 2013, Graz, Austria, 8th – 9th November 2013.

66. Tahayori, B., and Dokos, S. “Challenging the optimally of rectangular pulse stimulation for neuroprosthetic devices.” 6th International IEEE EMBS Neural Engineering Conference, San Diego, USA, 6th – 8th November 2013.

67. Tahayori, B., Meffin, H., Sergeev, E.N., Burkitt, A.N., and Grayden, D.B. “Analytic approach to determining threshold values for epiretinal visual prostheses.” NeuroEng 2013: Australian Workshop on Computational Neuroscience, Melbourne, Australia, 30th – 31st January 2013.

68. Tahayori, B., Meffin, H., Sergeev, E.N., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. “Novel Volume Conductor Equations Account for the Cellular Composition of Tissue.”

3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Philip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

69. Tong, W., Ganesan, K, Fox, K., Shimoni, O., and Prawer, S. “Patterning of monolithic diamond films by inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching.” SPIE Micro+Nano Materials, Devices, and Applications, Melbourne, Australia, 8th – 11th November 2013.

70. Tong, W., Fox, K., Ganesan, K., Turnley, A., Shimoni, O., and Prawer, S. “Fabrication of a featureless

26 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

conductive diamond scaffold for biomedical applications” 4th AsiaPacific Symposium on Nanobionics, Melbourne, Australia, 14th – 15th November 2013.

71. Tong, W., Turnley, A., Fox, K., Ganesan, K., Christie, K., Shimoni, O., and Prawer, S. “Diamond as a substrate for neuronal cell growth.”

22nd Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering (ASBTE), Adelaide, Australia, 2nd – 5th April 2013.

72. Tran, N., Bai, S., Yang, J., Chun, H., Kavehei, O., Yang, Y., Muktamath, V., Ng, D., Meffin, H., Halpern, M., and Skafidas, S. “A Complete and Highly Flexible 256-Electrode Retinal Prosthesis Chip.” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Osaka, Japan, 3rd – 7th July 2013.

73. Varsamidis, M., Luu, C.D., Dimitrov, P.N., Guymer, R.H., and Ayton, L.N. “The Prevalence of Residual Visual Field Islands in Potential Candidates for Retinal Prostheses.”

Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

74. Vessey, K.A., Jobling, A.I., and Fletcher, E.L. “Absence of a functional P2X7 receptor slows photoreceptor degeneration in the Rd1 mouse.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

75. Villalobos, J., Allen, P.J., Luu, C.D., Ayton, L.N., Yeoh, J., Nayagam, D.A.X., Opie, N.L., Shivdasani, M.N., Perry, D., Burns, O., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. “Development of a Flexible Lead for a Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

76. Villalobos, J., Allen, P.J., Luu, C.D., Ayton, L.N., Yeoh, J., Nayagam, D.A.X., Opie, N.L., Shivdasani, M.N., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. “A suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis with a flexible lead is reliable for patient testing.” Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

77. Wong, R.C.S., Garrett, D.J., Grayden, D.B., Savage, C.O., Apollo, N.V., Cloherty, S.L., Ibbotson, M.R., Prawer, S., Burkitt, A.N., and O’Brien, B.J. “’Hacking’ vision with a retinal

prosthesis.” 33rd Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 6th February 2013.

78. Yeoh, J., Saunders, A., Nayagam, D.A.X., Williams, C.E., McCombe, M.F., Owen, B., Villalobos, J., McPhedran, M.E., Briggs, R., and Allen, P.J. “Development of a human surgical procedure for implanting a wide view electrode array in the suprachoroidal space.”

Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), Seattle, USA, 5th – 9th May 2013.

Invitations to present at Peer-Reviewed Internationally Recognised Conference 1. Ayton, L.N. “Seeing into the Future: Australia’s First Bionic Eye.” Presented at the Western Australia Vision Education (WAVE) Conference, Perth, Australia, 10th – 13th August 2013.

2. Ayton, L.N. “The Six Million Dollar Man: Present and Future Bionic Eyes.” Presented at the Blue Sky Conference (Optometrists Association SA), Adelaide, Australia, 15th – 17th November.

3. Barnes, N. “An Overview of Vision Processing in Implantable Vision Prosthetic Vision.” Presented at the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Melbourne, Australia, 15th – 18th September 2013.

4. Barnes, N. “Vision processing for bionic eye: How computer vision is helping people see.” Presented at the National Conference for Computing Students (CompCon), Canberra, Australia, 29th September 2013.

5. Burkitt, A.N. “The quest to restore vision for the blind with medical bionics: The Bionic Vision Australia research program.” Presented at the 6th Asia & Oceania Conference on Photobiology, Sydney, Australia, 10th – 13th November 2013.

6. Deverell, L. “Bionic Vision Australia Research Update” Presented at the AER International Orientation and Mobility Conference, New Orleans, USA, 11th – 14th December 2013.

7. Fletcher, E.L. “The role of microglia in regulating photoreceptor integrity.” Presented at the European Retina Meeting, Alicante, Spain, 2nd – 5th October 2013.

8. Ibbotson, M.R. “Research Offers Potential New Avenues to Cure Amblyopia.” Presented at the Australian College of Optometry Conference 2013, Melbourne, Australia, 18th – 19th October 2013.

9. Lovell, N.H. “Design of a Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis” Invited plenary talk at the Biomedizinische Technik (BMT), Graz, Austria, 19th – 21st September 2013.

10. Lovell, N.H. “Point-of-care technologies for managing health: Issues associated with unsupervised measurements.” Presented at the IEEE EMBS Special Topic Conference on Point-Of-Care (POC) Healthcare Technologies, Bangalore, India, 15th – 17th January 2013.

11. Lovell, N.H. “Medical device technologies for managing disease and wellness.” Keynote speaker at the IEEE Life Sciences Grand Challenges Conference 2013, Singapore, 2nd – 3rd December 2013.

12. Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. “Challenges in improving the performance of a retinal prosthesis: Neural interfacing and current steering.” Keynote speakers at the Symposium on Grand Challenges in Neural Technology (SGCNT), Singapore, 4th – 5th December 2013.

13. Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. “Challenges in the Design of a Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis” Invited keynote speaker at the US Turkey Advanced Study Institute on Global Healthcare Grand Challenges, Adrasan, Turkey, 16th – 20th June 2013.

14. Nayagam, D.. “Preclinical Safety and Efficacy of a Bionic Eye.” Presented at 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th September 2013.

15. Prawer, S. “High Density Conductive Diamond Electrodes: Applications in Medical Bionics.” Presented at 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Phillip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th September 2013.

16. Prawer, S. Invited presentation at the DARPA Neural Interfaces Symposium, Melbourne, Australia, 20th – 21st May 2013.

17. Prawer, S. “Seeing with diamonds: From quantum sensing to bionic eyes” Presented at the 29th Annual

Meeting of Frontiers in Optics APS/DLS, Orlando, Florida, 6th – 10th October 2013.

18. Shepherd, R.K. “From the ear to eye - A short distance but a long journey” Presented at the StVincent’s Surgical Forum 2013: Sir Hugh Devine Oration, Melbourne, Australia, 19th – 20th September 2013.

19. Shepherd, R.K. “Research and Clinical Applications of Medical Bionics.”

Presented at the DARPA Neural Interfaces Symposium, Melbourne, Australia, 20th – 21st May 2013.

20. Shepherd, R.K. “Visual prostheses: A progress report to the CIAP community.” Presented at the Conference on Implantable Auditory Prostheses (CIAP), California, USA, 14th – 19th July 2013.

21. Shepherd, R.K. “New Developments in Medical Bionics and their Potential Applications.” Presented at the ATSE Health Technology Forum Seminar, Adelaide Australia 22nd November 2013.

22. Suaning, G.J. “Fundamentals of a neural prosthesis: An Engineer’s perspective.” 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, Philip Island, Australia, 17th – 20th November 2013.

23. Suaning, G.J. “Human-machine interfaces - restoring sensory and motor function through neuroprosthesis.” Presented at 4th Asia-Pacific Symposium on Nanobionics, Melbourne, Australia, 14th – 15th November 2013.

24. Suaning, G.J. “Technology for Stimulation of the Visual System – from Electrodes to Systems.”

International Symposium on Visual Prosthetics, Artificial Vision 2013, Aachen, Germany, 8th – 9th November 2013.

Community Outreach Presentations (schools, universities, professional organisations, general public, vision impaired community) 1. Allen, P. “Bionic Eye” Presented at The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear 150th Anniversary Public Lecture Series, BMW Edge at Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia, 12th March 2013.

2. Ashworth, D., and Ayton, L. “Bionic Eye Update” Presented to Guide Dogs Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 17th May 2013.

Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 27

3. Ayton, L. and Ashworth, D. “Bionic Eye Update” Presented at the Retina Australia Annual General Meeting, Melbourne, Australia, 12th October 2013 4. Ayton, L.N. Presentation on multidisciplinary collaborations for the University of Melbourne Early Career Research Workshop, Trinity College, Parkville, Australia, 16th July 2013.

5. Ayton, L.N. Presentation at CERA “Mind Ministry” Internal Seminar, Melbourne, Australia, 12th July 2013.

6. Ayton, L.N., and O’Hare, F. “Bionic Eye Research” Presented at the Market of the Mind, Southbank, Melbourne, Australia, 16th August 2013.

15. Fox, K. “The Bionic Eye Project” Presented at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, 12th June 2013.

16. Ibbotson, M.I. “Bionic Eye” Presented to Lions Club, 25th August 2013.

17. Ibbotson, M.I. Presented at the Mens’ Health Dinner at Sandringham Club, Melbourne, Australia, 24th October 2013.

18. Kameneva, T. “VLSCI and Bionic Vision Research” Presented at the UoM Festival of Ideas, Melbourne, Australia, 2nd October 2013.

19. Kiral-Kornek, I. “Bionic Eye Research” Presented at CERA Fundraising Concert, Melbourne, Australia, 31st October 2013.

7. Barnes, N. “The Bionic Eye – The latest developments in vision processing for the bionic eye.”

Presented at the Centenary of Canberra Science program, Canberra, Australia, August 2013.

20. Kiral-Kornek, I., Gouskova, V., Brawn, T. “The Bionic Eye” Presented at Kensington Primary School, Melbourne, Australia, 16th September 2013.

8. Blamey, P. “Bionic Eye” Presented at the Tech Transfer Summit, Walter and Eliza Hall, Melbourne, Australia, 3rd – 4th September 2013.

21. Lichter, S. “High Acuity research and careers in science.” Presented at Teach for Australia Summer School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 7th January 2013.

9. Boyd, C. “The Bionic Eye” Presented at the ICT Careers Week Expo, State Library Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 17th July 2013.

10. Burkitt, A.N. “Looking into the Future of Bionic Eye” Presented at the Melbourne School of Engineering Dean’s Lecture Series, Melbourne, Australia, 28th May 2013.

11. Burkitt, A.N. “Restoring a sense of vision to people with profound vision impairment: The Bionic Vision Australia research program” Presented at the 6th Asia and Oceania Conference on Photobiology Conference, Sydney, NSW, 12 November 2013.

12. Burkitt, A.N. “The quest to restore vision for people with profound blindness using medical bionics”, Bernstein Colloquium 2013, Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, 22 July 2013.

13. Burkitt, A.N. “The quest to restore vision for the blind with medical bionics: The Bionic Vision Australia research program” Director’s Colloquium 2013, Research School of Physics and Engineering (RSPE), ANU, Canberra, ACT, 6 June 2013.

14. Fox, K. Exhibit and public talk at Techfest 2013, RSB Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia, 10th May 2013.

22. Morley, J. “Developing a Bionic Eye” Presented at MARCS Institute, University of Western Sydney, Sydney Australia, 1st July 2013.

23. Morley, J. “Developing a Bionic Eye” Presented at UNSW Brain Science Symposium, Sydney, Australia, 18th October 2013.

24. Nayagam, D.A.X. “The Bionic Eye” Invited talk at Rice University, Houston, US, 1st May 2013.

25. Nayagam, D.A.X. “The Bionic Eye” Presented at University of Melbourne Masters of Biomedical Engineering Students Guest Lecture, Melbourne, Australia, 1st May 2013.

26. NICTA CRL Vision Processing team presented “Vision Processing Activities” at the National Youth Science Forum, NICTA CRL, Canberra, Australia, 1st April 2013.

27. NICTA CRL Vision Processing team presented “Vision Processing” at the Techfest 2013, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, 13th February 2013.

28. O’Hare, F. “The Bionic Eye: An Overview” Presented at the Macular Degeneration: A Free Community Information Forum, Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, 10th October 2013.

28 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

29. Patients and researcher leaders presented “24 Channel Prototype” at Eureka Prize Awards Dinner, Sydney, Australia, 4th September 2013.

30. Penington, D. After dinner address at the AusMedTech Conference Dinner, Albert Part, Australia, 16th May 2013.

31. Shepherd, R.K., “Neural Prostheses: practical applications in neuroscience” Presented at the John Curtain School of Medical Research, Sydney, Australia 10th May 2013.

32. Shepherd, R.K. “Visual prostheses for the treatment of end-stage pigmentosa” Presented at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India, 3rd December 2013.

33. Shepherd, R.K. “The application of neural prostheses for neurological disorders” Presented at the Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 4th December 2013.

34. Shepherd, R.K. “The application of neural prostheses for neurological disorders” Presented at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India, 5th December 2013.

35. Shepherd, R.K., “Medical Bionics application in neurology, otology and ophthalmology” Presented at JIPMER Scientific Society, Pondicherry, India, 8th December 2013.

36. Shepherd, R.K. “An overview of Medical Bionics” Presented at JIPMER Scientific Society, Pondicherry, India, 9th December 2013.

37. Shepherd, R.K. “Visual prostheses for the treatment of end-stage pigmentosa” Presented at Avarind Eye Hospital, Pondicherry, India, 8th December 2013.

38. Shivdasani, M.N., and Nayagam, D.A.X. “Bionic Eye Project” Presented at Ivanhoe Girls Grammar Careers Night, 30th July, Ivanhoe Girls Grammar, Australia.

Support our work Find out more Visit bionicvision.org.au to: • Help fulfil the promise of the bionic eye by donating to our research • Support clinical research by registering to participate in patient tests • Find out more about how this technology works, who it will help, and the people undertaking this important research.

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Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013 29

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30 Bionic Vision Australia Annual Report 2013

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Published by Bionic Vision Australia, March 2014.

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