BVA book 2015

bionic vision australia

2010–2015

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 1

Carla Abbott Chathurika Abeyrathne Miganoosh Abramian Khurrum Aftab Arman Ahnood Amr Al Abed Penny Allen Melissa Anenden Umar Ansari Felix Aplin Nicholas Apollo Ulises Aregueta Robles Rebecca Argent Stefan Audick Khin-Zaw Aung Lauren Ayton Wayne Bahr Shun Bai Siewei Bai Nick Barnes Sharon Bentley Peter Blamey Yun-Xin Book Brandon Bosse Viorica Botea Alexandra Boulgakov Elizabeth Bowman Clive Boyd Kain Bozzetto Alice Brandli Christain Braun Tamara Brawn Greg Brewer Robert Briggs Gaby Bright Anthony Burkitt Owen Burns Lucy Busija Robert Buttery Philip Byrnes-Preston Morven Cameron Willie Campbell Lisa Cardamone Frank Caruso Charles Chan Clare Chandler Spencer Chen Eu Geen Chew Daniel Chiu Hosung Chun Rosemary Cicione Shaun Cloherty Anne Coco Paul Crossley Jonathan Crowston Melville da Cruz Rebecca Dengate Hugh Dennett Lil Deverell Darien Diaz Peter Dimitrov Chris Dodds Socrates Dokos Ivan Dujmovic Gerald Dumm Silvia Duo Calvin Eiber Lars Elmgreen Alexander Emperle Stephanie Epp Mathilde Escudie David Fabinyi Alana Faigen James Fallon David Favaloro Helen Feng David Feng Rob Finger Matt Flax Erica Fletcher Kate Fox Adrian Fung Kumar Ganesan David Garrett Qian Garrett Melanie Gault Georgia Giannakis Lisa Gillespie Josef Goding Farhad Goodarzy Veronika Gouskova Barry Gow David Grayden Rylie Green Ursula Greferath Thomas Guenther Tianruo Guo Robyn Guymer Amgad Habib Alex Hadjinicolaou Colin Hales Ahmed Halima Mark Halpern Kerry Halupka Mark Harrison Rachelle Hassarati Sharon Haymes Xuming He Sam (Yuhua) He Wilson Heriot Julia Hill John Hilton Cherry Ho Scott Hoggan Lachlan Horne Wenqi Huang Yu-Shan Hung Michael Ibbotson Natalie James Catherine Jefferies Saiful Joarder Sam John Louis Jung Tatiana Kameneva Omid Kavehei Jill Keeffe William Kentler Gita Khalili Junae Kim Isabell Kiral-Kornek Fabien Koehler Sergej Kolke Leila Koushaeian Tom Kulaga Tom Landry Torsten Lehmann Ronald Leung Yi Li Hongdong Li Samantha Lichter Paulette Lieby William Lim Nianjun Liu Florienne Loder Nigel Lovell Hong Lu Chi Luu Galina Makeyeva Isabel Maskos Paul Matteucci Matias Maturana Vanessa Maxim Chris McCarthy Mark McCombe Hugh McDermott Ceara McGowan Leigh McKinlay Michelle McPhedran Shane McSweeney Hamish Meffin Ivan Mellado Fu Meng Lauren Meredith Rodney Millard Apoorv Mintri John Morley David Moussa Stephen Mow Austin Mueller Vijay Muktamath Pamela Nassif David Nayagam Manohar Nayak David Ng Mo Nikro Brendan O’Brien Emily O’Brien Fleur O’Hare Nick Opie Elma O’Sullivan-Greene Kimberly Owen Tracy Painter Kyoungup Park Sunil Patel Gavin Pearce Samunda Perera Thushara Perera David Perry Matt Petoe Geoff Pidcock Annabelle Pontvianne Steven Prawer Thomas Prischenk Julie-Anne Quinn Andrea Rassell Gwyneth Rees Nazaha Riffah Alejandro Rivera Phil Robertson Ashley Rozario Susmita Saha Tristan Sander Alexia Saunders Craig Savage Adele Scott Abd-Krim Seghouane Peter Seligman Evgeni Sergeev Ahmad Shah Idil Nitzan Shany Chunhua Shen Rob Shepherd Mohit Shivdasani Nick Sinclair Stan Skafidas Kyle Slater Ella Slonim Joshua Specks Ashley Stacey Alastair Stacey Christiaan Stronks Gregg Suaning Bahman Tahayori Veronica Tatarinoff Betty Tellis Patrick Thien Wei Tong Hamza Toor Nhan Tran Jennifer Tran David Tsai Krishna Tumuluri Meera Ulaganathan Mary Varsamidis Nick Venables Kirsten Vessey Joel Villalobos Janine Walker Tao Wang Song Wang Xiao Ting (Michael) Wang Robert Wilke Chris Williams Vivienne Wong Raymond Wong Alan Woods Andrew Woolley Jin Xu Chih Yu (John) Yang Jiawei Yang Yuanyuan Yang Michael Yarrow Jonathan Yeoh Shijie Yin Shivy Yohanandan Jin Yu Marc Zapf Parvin Zarei Daniel Zarelli JiaJia Zhang 2 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

contents Preface 03 From the Director

04

Beginnings 07 A bionic eye in the making

12

Technology 15 Recognition 35 People 45 Publications listing

65

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 1

This image, by Andrew Woolley and PhD student Aaron Gilmore, shows 0.2mm of tissue culture grown on platinum for electrode biomaterial research for the Wide-View device.

Neural axon ‘wires’ (cyan) and biological insulation called myelin (orange) were imaged using laser microscopy. This image placed in the Olympus Bioscapes imaging competition, and was published in the Scientific American magazine.

2 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Preface Welcome to Bionic Vision Australia’s retrospective; a compilation of stories and achievements from our quest to develop retinal implants to restore a sense of vision to people with vision impairment.

This publication cannot possibly record all the activities and results of the 243 staff and students who participated in BVA. What it does offer is an overview of the institutions, teams and people that make up BVA, and some of their remarkable achievements. The impressive list of publications contained in this book provides an indication of the outstanding scholarship of our researchers, and I would like to acknowledge their considerable contributions.

As Chair of the BVA Governing Board, I wish to thank those who have served on our Boards and Committees over the years. In particular, I wish to acknowledge my predecessor as Chair, Professor Emeritus David Penington AC, who served from 2010–2013.

Thanks to all of those who have served on the Governing Board, Risk and Audit Committee and as Bionic Vision Technologies (BVT) Directors: Professor Peter Blamey, Dr Charlie Day, Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte, Dr Shanny Dyer, Professor Rob Evans, Mr Peter Gover, Mr Tim Griffiths, Ms Christina Hardy, Mr James Joughin, Mr Robert Klupacs, Mr Peter Lightbody, Professor Iven Mareels, Mr Peter Nankivell, Professor Laura PooleWarren, Ms Julie Anne Quinn, Professor Laurent Rivory, Dr Andrew Rudge, Dr Colin Sutton, Professor Hugh Taylor and Ms Leanne Taylor.

Our researchers have been well served by members of the Scientific Advisory Board: Professor Brian Anderson AO, Dr Mark Blumenkranz, Dr Nick Cerneaz, Professor Dominique Durand and Professor Thomas Stieglitz.

I wish to thank the members of the BVA Executive Team: Director Professor Anthony Burkitt, General Manager Julie Anne Quinn, Project Manager Tamara Brawn, and Executive Assistant Tracy Painter and their colleagues, who have managed and supported this complex entity since 2010.

Professor Mark Hargreaves Chair, Bionic Vision Australia

My final thanks are to the Australian Government for establishing the Special Research Initiative in Bionic Vision Science and Technology, and the Australian Research Council (ARC) for their support and encouragement along the way.

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 3

From the Director Medical bionics is a field that Australia has played an important role in developing, and in which it continues to excel internationally.

I was drawn to the field of cochlear implant research by the combination of two key factors: first, the opportunity to undertake research that would have a profound effect upon the lives of patients with severe disability, and second, the intellectual challenge involved in researching at the very forefront of such a multi-disciplinary field. I came to the BVA project, and the promise of the bionic eye, for much the same reasons. Cochlear implant technology has achieved remarkable clinical success over the past decades, which has laid the foundation for the application of this technology to address vision impairment through retinal implants. BVA is recognised internationally as playing an important role in the development of these visual prostheses and we certainly believe we have made a profound contribution to these devices one day achieving the success of the cochlear implant.

This journey, from bionic ear to bionic eye, has been felt throughout the BVA project. Our greatest strength has undoubtedly been our people – an impressive combination of those with decades of experience in developing bionic devices, including Australia’s ground breaking cochlear implant, and talented emerging researchers.

4 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

One of our greatest strengths has undoubtedly been our people – an impressive combination of those with decades of experience...and talented emerging researchers.

One of the most important original objectives of the BVA program was training the next generation of researchers in the field of medical bionics. We have not only attracted high quality PhD students and Early Career Researchers but we have also been able to provide them with training and development opportunities. While our research program has benefited from their insight and energy, the experience gained by working in such a multi-disciplinary environment, as well as the training they have received in areas as diverse as intellectual property management and media interaction, will be invaluable in their future careers. This has been especially gratifying and will be amongst the most enduring legacies of BVA. This cohort of researchers have been led and supported by a group of senior researchers, all leaders in their fields. I must thank members of the Research Management Committee (Dr Penny Allen, Professor Robyn Guymer, Professor Nigel Lovell, Dr Hamish Meffin, Professor Rob Shepherd and Professor Gregg Suaning) and all the Partner and Chief Investigators (Associate Professor Nick Barnes, Professor Peter Blamey, Professor Jonathan Crowston, Associate Professor Socrates Dokos, Professor Erica Fletcher, Professor Michael Ibbotson, Associate Professor Torsten Lehmann,

Professor John Morley Professor Steven Prawer and Professor Stan Skafidas) for their considerable commitment to the project.

The success of many of our Early Career Researchers with obtaining research grants has been great to see, as has that of so many of the mid-career and more senior BVA researchers. These research grants from the ARC, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and other funding organisations, will ensure that the underlying basic research continues to be pushed forward, both directly in our area of visual prostheses and in many of the related areas where the technology we have developed has potential applications.

The award of an NHMRC Project grant to support a patient study with a 44-channel Wide-View device is particularly significant, and will carry forward the clinical translation of the suprachoroidal approach, which has been such an outstanding success of the BVA project. The increased understanding of how electrical stimulation can be controlled to elicit neural activity and visual percepts has come about through the work our team has done in electrophysiology, psychophysics, and vision processing and will be important for the ongoing development of visual prostheses.

It has been truly astonishing to see the way the field of medical bionics has expanded over the past decade not only to address conditions such as deafness and blindness, but a whole range of neural disorders, including epilepsy and motor conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease. This burgeoning of the field and the diversity of implantable devices has also involved the corresponding growth in the types of materials used and the electrical stimulation strategies implemented.

Many of the technologies we have developed not only have applications in visual prostheses, but have exciting potential for other areas of medical bionics, such as the development of diamond-based electrodes for both recording and stimulating neural tissue.

It is exciting to be doing research that has such potential to provide enormous benefit to people not only with retinal degenerative diseases, but now a whole range of neurological conditions. It is immensely rewarding to reflect on the enormous technical achievements made in just five years of funded research, and to look ahead to what might be achieved in the future.

Professor Anthony N. Burkitt Director, Bionic Vision Australia 

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 5

6 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Beginnings In 2008, then Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Kevin Rudd MP, brought together 1000 Australians in a community consultative forum known as the Australia 2020 Summit to help shape a long-term strategy for the nation’s future.

Among its recommendations, the Summit identified the bionic eye as a significant opportunity to improve the quality of life for vision impaired people. The Prime Minister provided $50 million in funding for a Special Research Initiative in Bionic Vision Science and Technology, to be administered by the ARC. Even before the 2020 Summit, leaders from the Australian universities and research institutes that eventually formed the BVA consortium were in discussions about a bionic eye project. At that time, bionic eye research at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) dated back over a decade, and a formal collaboration with the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) was established in 2006. The Bionic Ear Institute (now the Bionics Institute), NICTA and University of Melbourne began discussions in this direction in 2006. The first meeting between what we now recognise as the five BVA core members took place on 19 February 2007.

Supported by initial seed funding from UNSW, John T. Reid and the New South Wales and Victorian Governments, a successful bid to the initiative enabled this group of researchers to put together the multidisciplinary teams necessary to make an Australian bionic eye a reality.

The consortium known as Bionic Vision Australia (BVA) was born, along with the Monash Vision Group (MVG) who had also been awarded a grant from the Special Research Initiative, commenced operations in 2010.

BVA would undertake research on two types of retinal implants, while MVG focused its research on a cortical implant. The two groups would meet and collaborate over the ensuing five years.

An enormous amount of effort went into forming the BVA consortium and making the successful bid. Those to be acknowledged for their input are Professor Anthony Burkitt,

Dr Charlie Day, Ms Kylie Gould, Dr Marija Maher, Professor Iven Mareels and Professor Peter Rathjen from the University of Melbourne and UoM Commericial; Dr Penny Allen, Professor Robyn Guymer, Dr Chi Luu, Dr Mark McCombe, Ms Gerlinde Scholz, Professor Hugh Taylor and Dr Khay-Lin Teoh from CERA; Mr Tim Griffiths, Professor Rob Shepherd and Associate Professor Chris Williams from the Bionic Ear Institute; Dr Jim Henderson, Professor Nigel Lovell, Associate Professor Laurent Rivory, Mr Leigh Schwartzkopf, Professor Gregg Suaning and Dr Colin Sutton from UNSW and NewSouth Innovations and Associate Professor Nick Barnes, Mr Stuart Cole, Professor Rob Evans, Mr Luan Ismahil, Dr Hamish Meffin, Mr Phil Robertson and Professor Stan Skafidas from NICTA. Mr Ben Apted from SPP, Dr Graeme Chandler and Professor Michael Ibbotson also played key roles.

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 7

The core parties of BVA – the Bionics Institute, CERA, NICTA, the University of Melbourne and the UNSW – brought a broad and deep expertise embodied in retinal surgeons and physicians, materials scientists, computer scientists, neurophysiologists, biomedical engineers, signal processing engineers, and electrical and electronics engineers.

In 2009 the core parties had agreed on terms for the formation of an unincorporated joint venture which subsequently formed the basis of the structure and governance of the consortium. The University of Melbourne was designated Administering Organisation for the grant, with the Executive team based in the Melbourne School of Engineering, while UNSW, through NewSouth Innovations, led the consortium’s commercialisation activities.

8 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

In developing BVA we recognised the need to reach out beyond our core team to access other skills and experience. BVA involved as Supporting Participants the University of Western Sydney (UWS) and the Australian National University (ANU) for further expertise in electrophysiology and visual neuroscience. Subsequently, the Chief Investigator from ANU relocated to the National Vision Research Institute (NVRI), resulting in ANU’s withdrawal from the consortium and NVRI’s inclusion.

The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital became a supporting participant in 2011, playing a key role in the clinical phase with our prototype patient study and ongoing patient support. In an outstanding achievement, implantation of a world-first suprachoroidal retinal device in three people took place at the Hospital in 2012.

The initial ARC grants to BVA and MVG were for four years. Early in 2013, both bionic eye programs were reviewed, and following a successful report on progress and achievements, a further one year of funding was provided, allowing the project to continue in 2014. Through careful budgeting during the five years, BVA was able to continue in a reduced capacity in 2015.

BVA is in a transition phase in 2015.

A successful NHMRC grant will see one of the devices through a clinical study over the next three years, and a number of our researchers have secured other ARC and NHMRC grants. Bionic Vision Technologies Pty Ltd, the company established to commercialise the BVA Technologies, is seeking investment to take the technology through clinical trials and ultimately to the market and clinical use.

BVA organisations

Sydney University of New South Wales

Melbourne

University of Western Sydney

Bionics Institute

Canberra

Centre for Eye Research Australia

Australian National University

University of Melbourne National Vision Research Institute

NICTA

NICTA Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 9

10 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Teams and institutions Develop a Wide-View retinal prosthesis for mobility and navigation

Develop safe and reproducible surgical procedures for implantation

University of New South Wales University of Western Sydney

Centre for Eye Research Australia

Bionics Institute

Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital

Surgical

Establish clinical tests for patient selection assessment, training and rehabilitation

Wide-View Device Development

NICTA

Stimulation Strategy

Clinical

External Processing Systems

Preclinical High-Acuity Device Development

University of Melbourne Bionics Institute University of New South Wales

University of New South Wales University of Melbourne University of Western Sydney

Centre for Eye Research Australia

Vision processing and psychophysics; hardware and software

Design, test and validate patterns of electrical stimulation

Develop a High-Acuity retinal prosthesis for face recognition and independence University of Melbourne NICTA

National Vision Research Institute

Demonstrate safety and efficacy of retinal implants Bionics Institute University of Western Sydney National Vision Research Institute/ Australian National University University of New South Wales University of Melbourne

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 11

A bionic eye in the making 2010 Launch of BVA by the Prime Minister Engineers design prototype implant for Wide-View device Surgeons develop a safe and effective technique for implantation

2007 1997 Start of bionic eye research at UNSW

First discussions commence between Bionics Institute, CERA, NICTA, University of Melbourne and UNSW

Engineers create image encoding techniques to stimulate vision Preclinical testing of safety and efficacy of Wide-View and High-Acuity devices underway

2000

2009

2011

Early funding for bionic eye research through ARC, NHMRC, State Governments of Victoria and New South Wales, Multimedia Victoria and private donations

Announcement of a $42 million grant to BVA from ARC over four years

Design of electrode array for Wide-View device is completed Engineers complete first microchips for Wide-View and High-Acuity devices Clinicians complete structure and function study with retinitis pigmentosa patients Materials scientists establish use of diamond as a stimulating interface for electrodes in High-Acuity device Vision processing algorithms for phosphenated vision developed Development and preclinical testing of the 24-channel WideView prototype, with percutaneous connection, as a first step towards testing the Wide-View device

12 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

2012 New labs opened at the UNSW Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering Surgeons safely implant bionic eye prototype in the first recipient – Dianne Ashworth Engineers complete, equip and test booths for clinical and psychophysics evaluations Dianne Ashworth’s prototype implant successfully switched on and she reports seeing flashes of light when electrodes are stimulated Murray Rowland and Maurice Skehan are also implanted with prototype device and begin testing

2014 Further patient testing with mobile, external system Completion of patient study with 24-channel Wide-View prototype Pilot chronic evaluation of Wide-View device begins Next generation High-Acuity microchip returned for testing Engineers successfully bond stimulation microchip to Wide-View electrode array NHMRC award grant to CERA for patient study with fully implantable 44-channel WideView device

2013

2015

Patient testing begins with a mobile, external system integrated with 24-channel Wide-View prototype and continue psychophysics and seated functional vision assessment

Complete bench testing of the microchip for the High-Acuity device

The physical characteristics of the Wide-View and High-Acuity devices are optimised Engineers develop techniques to ensure Wide-View and High-Acuity devices are hermetic

2016 Patient study with 44-channel Wide-View device Further commercialisation activities through BVT

Active chronic studies with both Wide-View and High-Acuity devices Progress ethics and regulatory pathway for patient tests with 44-channel Wide-View device BVT enters incubation phase

Development and testing of stimulation strategies for use with 24-channel Wide-View prototype and future devices Researchers undertake computer and in vivo simulations to advance understanding of how devices will interact with the retina ARC funding for BVA and MVG extended for 12 months Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 13

14 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Technology Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 15

THE BVA DEVICES The aim of this project was to develop a retinal implant (bionic eye) capable of restoring vision to the blind and to enhance Australia’s position as a leader in the field of medical bionics.

BVA set out to:

Wide-View device

High-Acuity device

1. Develop through to human clinical trials a Wide-View retinal implant that will improve ambulatory vision for patients experiencing difficulties with light perception and mobility.

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

The High-Acuity device aims to restore vision to a level where people will be able to engage more socially via the increased ability to recognise faces and read large print. It will be implanted epiretinally – on the inside surface of the retina. The box that encapsulates the implant, and the electrodes themselves, are made of stable, inert polycrystalline doped diamond.

Through the use of new materials, this device has the potential to substantially improve on the technologies used by our international competitors.

By using proven materials and technologies we were able to achieve our first goal of completing a patient study with a Wide-View device. Three participants were safely implanted with a prototype 24-channel device for two years (2012-2014).

Our original goal was to assess the viability of this advanced approach preclinically. This has been achieved by demonstrating that diamond is able to stimulate the retina in order to elicit neural response in preclinical in vitro and in vivo studies. Our electronics engineers have developed a highdensity microchip that uses minimal power and can electrically stimulate the retina with diamond electrodes.

We are embarking on longer term active stimulation studies, and with additional funding will move into further development of wireless technology.

2. Develop through to preclinical trials a High-Acuity retinal implant that delivers functional central vision, image perception and increased patient independence.

3. Extract maximum commercial benefit from the innovative technologies developed, that will cement Australia’s competitive position in medical bionics and neural stimulation techniques.

The first two goals have been achieved, supporting the ongoing progress towards the third longer term goal.

BVA has focused on developing devices for people with vision impairment due to degenerative retinal conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.

This patient study proved the safety of the surgical approach and technology, and the efficacy of our stimulation and vision processing. Based on the success of this prototype study in three participants, we now have a pipeline of technologies in development: • A 44-channel device that will be tested in patients in 2016 and with plans for a larger clinical trial and commercialisation to follow • A 98-channel device which is in preclinical testing and, with further funding, will follow the 44-channel device into patient testing

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5 4

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

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

Implanted electrode array stimulates retina

2 Data processed and sent to implanted system via external wire. In future, wireless transmission will replace external wires

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

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 17

18 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Australian Research Council Key Performance Indicators met and exceeded Newsletters and articles in member organisations newsletters:

Number of postgraduate students involved in research program:

ARC:42 BVA:

Number of Early Career Researchers (ECRs) involved in research program:

ARC:15 BVA:

54

ARC:25

91

51

BVA:

Number of conference presentations at peer-reviewed internationally recognised scientific conferences:

ARC:272 BVA:

404

International visitors:

Media articles:

ARC:126 BVA:361

ARC:34 BVA:

144 Events for vision impaired community:

ARC:14 BVA:

23

ARC:130 Number of publications submitted to peer-reviewed internationally recognised scientific journals: BVA:

ARC:19 BVA:19

177

Invitations to address and participate in internationally recognised conferences:

BVA: ARC: 54

Public events about BVA research:

129

Annual research workshops:

Updates to website and online communications ARC: tools:

84

ARC:5 BVA:5

BVA:

750>

Meeting with the Monash University Bionic Eye consortium:

ARC: 10

40

BVA:

Grey number: ARC target 2010–2014 Blue number: BVA achieved (up to February 2015) Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 19

20 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Proving a new surgical approach Development of the suprachoroidal surgery In 2012, BVA achieved a world first in demonstrating the viability of implanting the bionic eye in the suprachoroidal space – a “pocket” between the choroid and the sclera of the eye. The groundwork for this major milestone began well before BVA was established through collaboration between researchers from Seoul National University, South Korea and UNSW. “I became friends with Professor Jong-Mo Seo from Seoul National University, primarily as a result of our mutual jet-lag having come from similar time zones and being unable to sleep when we attended conferences in other parts of the world. On multiple occasions we would find each other in the lobby of a hotel in the wee hours of the morning and began discussing ways in which we could work together. He liked our approach to making electrode arrays, and I liked his approach towards the implantation in the suprachoroidal space,” explains Professor Gregg Suaning, leader of the Wide-View Device Development Program.

Over a period of more than two years, they worked together to test the placement of electrode arrays in the suprachoroidal space. Vitreoretinal Surgeon Dr Penny Allen of CERA also spent time with the team at UNSW to study the suprachoroidal placement, and this early work, together with the results of the prototype patient study, showed the suprachoroidal approach to be safe and reliable.

With the advent of the BVA consortium, the suprachoroidal surgery was further developed in the Surgical Program through extensive preclinical studies for eventual human implantation.

Collaborative efforts within BVA and the strong evidence resulting from preclinical work enabled the first human tests of stimulation from within the suprachoroidal space.

Results from these tests showed this placement to have important advantages over other approaches used by competitors – being safe and mechanically stable while providing effective stimulation of surviving neurons.

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 21

Safe and effective Designing a prototype bionic eye In a project led by Associate Professor Chris Williams of the Bionics Institute, then PhD student Joel Villalobos found himself working as part of the team that designed and evaluated the 24-channel Wide-View prototype device. Building on earlier work from the UNSW and CERA team, this prototype device was developed for patient testing.

“In 2008 I started work with a suprachoroidal electrode array with a flexible polyamide substrate. This later morphed into a spherically conformable, silicone rubber substrate which was optimised for surgical implantation. We built, initially by hand, implantable electrode prototypes with standard medical grade materials. The iterative refinement and tuning of the shape and mechanical properties of the electrodes led to a very safe suprachoroidal implant.”

Joel found working with the surgeons from CERA advantageous during the development of the suprachoroidal implant. Input from the surgeons proved valuable in adapting the electrodes and leadwire that form the implant to fit the human anatomy and permit a safe and simple surgery.

22 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

“The spherically conformable suprachoroidal device was optimised to allow a very simple surgical procedure. This minimises risks to the patient and resulted in one of the safest bionic eye designs that has been proposed around the world. This technology permitted a patient test within four years of the inception of BVA. The pace of progress enabled BVA to narrow the gap with the progress of other bionic eye projects overseas.”

Now as a postdoctoral researcher at the Bionics Institute, Joel is working on upgrading the first-in-human suprachoroidal device to address opportunities for improvement identified from the patient tests.

“The outcomes of the patient tests signalled the need for increasing the visual field coverage and improving the charge delivery capacity of the electrodes. We expect that from the refinements prompted by the first participants’ that in the next stage patient trials, a fully functional 44-channel device will enable a second group of patients to regain better visual function.”

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24 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

FROM THEORY TO OUTCOMES Psychophysics, stimulation strategy and vision processing

BVA’s psychophysics team, led by Professor Peter Blamey of the Bionics Institute, has worked closely with test participants to study how the visual perceptual system responds to the electrical stimulation provided by the bionic eye. These findings have fed back into the stimulation strategy and vision processing programs to provide as much benefit as possible to users of the bionic eye.

Initial work involved developing a flexible system for stimulating the 24-channel Wide-View prototype in participants and protocols for testing. A psychophysics “booth” was established at the Bionics Institute in preparation for the patient tests.

“The psychophysics booth was setup to perform experiments with bionic eye implantees. It has a number of features that are used to obtain information from the test participants about what they are actually seeing when their eye is stimulated. The bionic eye test participants and researchers spent a lot of time together in the psychophysics booth, and it was the site of many highlights in the BVA program,” explains Nick Sinclair.

Researchers worked with each of the test participants to determine the location, size, shape and brightness of the phosphenes they were perceiving. Single-electrode data was collated into phosphene maps for each participant – enabling the size, brightness and location of phosphenes to be controlled for each participant.

“This meant that visual percepts could be successfully produced in all three patients (100% success rate),” says Nick. These phosphene maps were used to encode the visual input from a wearable camera – combining the work of psychophysicists with NICTA’s development of vision processing software and stimulation strategies.

The introduction of a wearable camera gave participants control

over the stimulation patterns sent to their device by scanning their head-mounted camera across the room. Participants also undertook extensive orientation and mobility trials conducted by CERA researchers and clinicians at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, NVRI and the Canberra labs of NICTA. These trials demonstrated that vision processing algorithms can improve a patient’s ability to navigate in everyday environments using only their implant.

“We reached our goals with the vision processing by the patients using the camera system successfully.

One of them even remarking that the prosthetic vision felt natural and intuitive over time,” says Associate Professor Nick Barnes.

The patient tests with the 24-channel prototype provided an invaluable opportunity for researchers to determine the most appropriate form of electrical stimulation for functional visual perception.

Left: A simulation of phosphenated vision. Opposite: Testing in the psychophysics both with prototype implant recipient Dianne Ashworth.

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 25

BVA Patents 2011 – 2014

Granted patents Patent filing in progress National Phase Entry (AU, US and EP)

32 Patent Cooperation Treaty

8 Provisional Application

4

11

Number of active patent families by category Device Fabrication

7 Implant Positioning

4 Electronics/Device Development

3 Stimulation Strategy

10 Vision Processing

6

26 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Everyday impact Low Vision Assessment of Daily Activities (LoVADA)

Joining BVA in 2011, Lil Deverell was one of the first orientation and mobility (O&M) instructors in Australia to enrol in a PhD. Her work involved devising measures of functional performance in O&M that could capture the everyday impact of a retinal implant.

As Lil explains, “clinical vision measures like visual acuity and visual fields do not predict how a person’s vision will be useful in everyday contexts.”

Working with people who have retinitis pigmentosa, Lil and the CERA team learned about the different ways people use their low vision to develop the functional vision research protocol LoVADA. “I enjoyed developing and piloting the functional vision research protocol with people who have retinitis pigmentosa. I discovered that people use their low vision very differently and I was able to learn more about, and give a language to, a level of vision which is usually described in the clinic as blindness.”

Lil’s approach to assessing functional performance is person-centred and measures what is important

to participants, not just what is important to researchers, to provide information about the usefulness of the bionic eye. “My project generated an Effective Mobility Framework through consultation with O&M experts and clients. This Framework prompted much broader consideration of the kinds of performance based tasks we could use and the kinds of measures which would be likely to generate meaningful data. This approach provides rich, descriptive information about the usefulness of the bionic eye as well as some measurement data.”

They had the opportunity to trial LoVADA with the three bionic eye trial participants during O&M testing with the semi-portable stimulator. “These three participants helped to refine and develop the standardised assessment

tasks in the hospital environment.

This is unfinished business though.

The prototype implant could only be used during formal research sessions.

With the next round of bionic eye testing we look forward to seeing which of our current tasks and measures can capture change over time. We will also be able to find out whether the bionic eye expands a person’s life-space and roaming from home – moving more confidently into unfamiliar areas.”

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28 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Pioneering materials Development of an all-diamond High-Acuity retinal prosthesis One of the challenges for BVA researchers working on the a HighAcuity device was overcoming the scepticism over whether diamond could be used for neural stimulation.

“Before 2012, the conventional wisdom was that diamond could not be used for neural stimulation.

Our discovery that nitrogen doped diamond (N-UNCD) could be modified to endow the material with more charge storage capacity changed this. We have gone on to show unequivocally that diamond has enormous potential for use in medical bionics, in particular for stimulation,” explains Dr David Garrett.

BVA researchers were the first group in the world to prove that doped diamond can stimulate responses in neurons. They are still the only group of researchers to have done so.

In a process of continual learning, the team were constantly pushing the boundaries in microfabrication techniques in order to develop the High-Acuity device.

“Initially we tried to make a hole in a polycrystalline diamond plate and fill it with N-UNCD. We could not make a hermetic device using this technique.

Finally, a combination of laser milling and laser percussion holes followed

by N-UNCD growth solved this issue,” explains Dr Kumar Ganesan who uses this method to construct an array of stimulating diamond electrodes in an inert diamond substrate. This technique is easily scalable and can be used to make a device with thousands of stimulating electrodes which can be used in applications besides bionic vision. Joining the stimulating array to a diamond case, the team can create a diamond capsule that protects the stimulating electronics from the biological environment.

In developing the High-Acuity device, Professor Steven Prawer says, “we are using a unique technology that takes advantage of the properties of diamond to stimulate the neural tissue and to safely encapsulate the electronics.

We pioneered the concept of diamond as a superior material for bionics.”

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Meeting challenges head on The microchips at the heart of the bionic eye “In creating a vision stimulator with 98 plus stimulation points, previous implantable stimulators fall well short in their capabilities. This required a fundamental rethink of the implant architecture and innovations in electronics and mechanical design,” explains Associate Professor Torsten Lehmann.

This fundamental rethink of the implant architecture led to the development of a split-implant system by electronic engineers at UNSW to be used for the Wide-View device.

The split-implant system separates the telemetry microchip (that receives external data) from the microchip that provides stimulation. A novel, two-wire interface connects the two microchips together. The team have drawn from cochlear implant technology for the telemetry implant. The stimulator implant is small enough to allow placement in the orbit of the eye where it can directly interface with the stimulating electrodes.

As Torsten sums up, “to develop a complete implant system has been a constant knife-edge balancing act to meet manufacturing deadlines without compromising core functionality.

The team has carried out a gargantuan task in getting where we are today.”

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The team of electronic engineers at the University of Melbourne developed a high density microchip that uses minimal power for the High-Acuity device.

“The challenge was designing a highly programmable, high-density stimulator in a compact, low voltage, silicon chip.

This resulted in a very complicated system that could fail right at the design stage. However, we managed to make the microchip work,” explains Dr Nhan Tran who completed his PhD dissertation on the design of the High-Acuity microchip.

Incorporating features such as a push-pull circuitry to generate stimulus currents ensured efficient use of the available voltage. The team manufactured and tested a 256-electrode array microchip that is ready for implantation. Setting it apart from other microchips used with retinal prostheses, each electrode can be programmed separately for truly flexible stimulation.

“The microchip is compact yet with high resolution. When combined with the diamond electrode array and diamond encapsulation, the whole device will potentially provide more vision restoration capability than current, state-of-the-art-devices.”

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Making electrodes smarter Optimising stimulation strategies An important focus for BVA researchers was to design advanced ways of stimulating retinal electrodes in order to improve the patient’s perception of a phosphene.

Work in the area of stimulation strategy for the Wide-View device involved attempting to create reproducible, localised phosphenes using a minimal amount of electrical current. Work was validated with computational models and preclinical experiments which saw the ideas from the stimulation strategy program incorporated into the design of the Wide-View microchip.

“We have been working on ways of focusing the area of activation of the retina whilst limiting the overall energy needed to create such phosphenes,” explains Professor Nigel Lovell.

“There were two critical technological discoveries that guided our stimulation strategy work. The first was to ensure effective charge localisation using a hexapolar guard ring surrounding each stimulating electrode.” This means that the electrode being stimulated would effectively be “protected” by a ring of unstimulated electrodes, enabling more precise stimulation.

“The second critical discovery was that of quasi-monopolar stimulation.

This technology offers the benefits of the charge localisation of the hexagonal arrangement whilst lowering stimulation threshold.”

For researchers focused on the High-Acuity device, their stimulation strategy program investigated tailoring the response of neurons to electrical stimulation. “These stimulation strategies will for the first time use recordings of the neural activity evoked by electrical stimulation. Using this recorded response we can in turn control the pattern of neural activity far better than previously, improving visual acuity and tailoring the stimulation to suit the retina of each individual patient,” explains Dr Hamish Meffin who leads the High-Acuity program and supervises Kerry Halupka in the stimulation strategy program.

Kerry’s work aims to improve the resolution of retinal prostheses by shaping and optimising the response of cortical neurons to electrical stimulation. As Kerry explains, “resolution of such devices is limited by the diffuse spread of neural activity.

By optimally choosing the current used on each electrode, this spread of activity can be altered in a predictable way. I have created a computational model that can accurately predict the cortical activity to any particular set of stimulation currents. We aim to use this model to choose stimulation currents that will lead to a targeted cortical response. With this strategy, we could go a long way towards improving patient experiences.”

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Recognition

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Top honour for dedication Bartimaeus Award In 2012, Professors Gregg Suaning and Nigel Lovell of UNSW were honoured with the Bartimaeus Award. For Gregg and Nigel the award was important recognition by peers in the field of the many years they have dedicated to the field of vision prostheses, both with BVA and prior to its formation.

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The Bartimaeus Award is given every second year by the Detroit Institute of Ophthalmology Board of Directors and recognises those whose outstanding contribution to the field of vision restoration to the blind through neural prosthesis is recognised worldwide. It is one of the highest honours in the field.

Previous Bartimaeus Award recipients include Professor Joseph Rizzo of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital, Professor Eberhardt Zrenner of the University of Tuebingen, Germany, and Dr Robert Greenberg, CEO of Second Sight Medical LLC, USA.

Support for international collaboration Hugh Rogers Fellowship Measuring visual and functional performance during vision restoration trials, including patient tests with the bionic eye, is difficult. This is a problem recognised by BVA Clinical Coordinator Dr Lauren Ayton of CERA and Professor Joseph Rizzo, lead investigator for the Boston Retinal Implant Project.

Together they have established a collaboration to generate international standards for assessing patient outcomes in vision restoration trials.

In 2013, Lauren was awarded the Hugh Rogers Fellowship by the Melbourne Boston Sister Cities Association and the City of Melbourne to travel to Harvard Medical School to work closely with Professor Rizzo to further this collaboration and begin work on establishing a task force.

The Harmonization of Outcomes and Vision Endpoints in Vision Restoration Trials (HOVER) Taskforce was well received by researchers in low vision and vision restoration with over 80 delegates agreeing to participate in the HOVER Taskforce immediately following its launch.

The project was officially launched at the 2014 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting, the largest vision conference in the world.

Above: Dr Lauren Ayton (centre) with (left to right) Professor Rob Shepherd, Dr Penny Allen, Professor Anthony Burkitt, Professor Joseph Rizzo and Professor Robyn Guymer.

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Peer recognition Best paper award for vision processing research In 2013, Dr Chris McCarthy, along with co-authors David Feng and Associate Professor Nick Barnes, were awarded best paper at the Multi-modal and Alternative Perception for the Vision Impaired (MAP4VIP) workshop in San Jose, California. The paper, “Augmenting intensity to enhance scene structure in prosthetic vision”, proposed a novel method of enhancing a visual scene to aid the identification of structurally significant features that help a person using a visual prosthesis to navigate through an environment.

The recognition, from a workshop that brought together researchers from the fields of computer vision, neuroscience, multimedia computing, sensor technologies and assistive technology applications, was meaningful for the vision processing team. Nick, leader of BVA’s Vision Processing research (left), says, “it was great to get this recognition from the prosthetic vision community about innovation in vision processing.”

Acknowledging student talent EMBC student paper competition PhD students have contributed to every area of BVA’s research – from materials science to orientation and mobility studies. While student research has been key to BVA’s successes, these students have had the opportunity to be part of a research project of national significance, gaining high level skills along the way.

Just one measure of the quality of student research is the success of BVA students at the International Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC) – the premier conference for the field. BVA students have been finalists or place getters in the competition every year from 2011– 2014. Nhan Tran won second prize in 2011 for his presentation “A Prototype 64-Electrode Stimulator in 65 nm CMOS Process towards a High Density Epi-Retinal Prosthesis”. Amgad Habib won the student paper competition in 2012 for his paper “Efficacy of the Hexpolar Configuration in Localizing the Activation of Retinal Ganglion Cells under Electrical Stimulation”.

Tianruo Guo won second place in 2013 for his paper “Cell-Specific Modeling of Retinal Ganglion Cell Electrical Activity” and was a finalist in 2014.

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Early Career Researchers rewarded ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRAs) Providing opportunities for Early Career Researchers to do unique work in a supportive environment has been a key aim for BVA. Three BVA researchers have been awarded DECRAs during their time with BVA – acknowledging the quality of Early Career Researchers connected to the BVA project and the unique opportunities the bionic eye project has provided emerging researchers.

The DECRA scheme aims to support and advance Australia’s most promising Early Career Researchers.

Dr Morven Cameron (left) was funded for her project titled ‘Modulation of gap-junction coupling in the mammalian retina’; Dr Tatiana Kameneva (centre) was awarded for her project ‘Feedback control as a tool for enhanced neuroprosthetic

stimulation’ and Dr David Garrett (right) was funded for his project ‘Diamond cybernetics: nanocrystalline diamond for interfacing bionic devices with the human nervous system’. This research has drawn upon and fed back into BVA’s research programs – advancing key areas of knowledge that have implications for the bionic eye and beyond.

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Independent assessment ARC Performance review In February 2013 the ARC undertook a performance review of both BVA and the MVG. This review provided independent external assessment of the progress of both bionic eye programs, and contained much positive feedback as well as practical suggestions for improvement. The review laid the basis for funding being extended for an additional 12 months for both groups.

“Both Bionic Vision projects demonstrated well-designed, highly focused, multi-disciplinary research programs with product-based outcomes. The Review Panel assessed the progress of both projects as excellent, noting the impressive development of three device streams with retinal and visual cortex prototypes. Both projects have well developed arrangements and processes for quality assurance for manufacturing of device component material. The current outputs of both projects have enabled Australia to become a world leader in the bionic eye research field.” – ARC Performance Review Report Above: Professor Nigel Lovell (BVA), Professor David Penington AC (BVA), Ms Anna Burke MP (Member for Chisholm), Professor David de Kretser AC (MVG), Senator the Hon Kim Carr, Professor Arthur Lowery (MVG) and Professor Aidan Byrne (ARC) at the announcement of the extension of funding for BVA and MVG in 2013.

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Rewarding accessible science 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition In 2012, PhD student Samantha Lichter (below) received special recognition for her talents in communicating her complex scientific niche – the application of diamond materials to retinal implants. A research communication challenge, the competition asks PhD students to present a compelling speech on

their thesis topic and its significance in just three minutes. Samantha’s talk, “Carats that REALLY improve your eyesight: an all-diamond bionic eye”, captured her excitement for her research and captured the imagination of the audience, and was awarded second place at the University of Melbourne.

Recognising interdisciplinary research Eureka Award nomination Truly interdisciplinary research has been central to BVA’s successes.

To demonstrate a world-first suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis, electrical and biomedical engineers, ophthalmologists, vision scientists, clinicians and surgeons worked side-by-side across disciplinary boundaries. The success of this team was recognised by BVA being chosen as a finalist for the Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research in 2013.

Presented annually by the Australian Museum, the Eureka Prizes reward excellence in the fields of research and innovation and are Australia’s premier science prize.

The gala dinner for the awards in Sydney was attended by BVA research leaders, Executive staff, PhD students and trial participant Dianne Ashworth.

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Global coverage Media announcement of the prototype implant success In 2012, the BVA bionic eye story captivated the world. The announcement of the successful implantation of a world first suprachoroidal bionic eye prototype in test participant Dianne Ashworth sparked a plethora of media coverage, and in turn, an enormous amount of public interest. On the day of the announcement the story was covered by all Australian national network news bulletins, and appeared in all major daily newspapers. Internationally, the story was covered by CNN, BBC, NBC and Reuters and appeared on numerous international platforms.

The hundreds of stories generated by this announcement indicate the great achievements of BVA’s research program in a short time and the huge public interest in its outcomes.

Many researchers have taken seriously the responsibility of sharing their research with the public, and have contributed a significant amount of effort to media activities and community events. For many, communicating their research in public forums enriched their experience. “It was great to spread the message of BVA’s achievements and to have my excitement about the technology reciprocated by each interviewer’s enthusiasm,” explains Dr Matt Petoe.

For Dr Lauren Ayton the public profile of the project was an opportunity to hone media and communication skills. “My improved skills in science communication have been one of the best outcomes from my involvement with BVA”.

Left: Surgeon Dr Penny Allen with prototype implant recipient Dianne Ashworth

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“My perception of research and what you can do (despite what your degree tells you you’re meant to do) has been changed through my BVA experience – and these sorts of outcomes for early career researchers should be recognised as a great win for BVA.” – Dr Chris McCarthy

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People

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Combining experience and new insights William Kentler and Peter Seligman One of the great strengths of the BVA project is the combination of experience and emerging talent in the group of people assembled to work on the project. Many of BVA’s researchers and leaders have been involved with the development of the bionic ear and Cochlear technology. In the translation of this technology from the bionic ear to the bionic eye they are sharing their experience with a new generation of medical bionics experts.

Professor Peter Seligman and William Kentler have been working together to develop the external hardware for the next bionic eye prototype scheduled for patient trials in 2016.

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“Peter was an instrumental member of the team that developed the original Cochlear Implant. His early experience closely matches the development stage that the bionic eye is in currently. Since we are basing the Wide-View technology on proven Cochlear technology, his advice is very valuable to us and we have been regularly meeting with him to run through our design decisions. Peter’s expertise has helped us steer through the potential minefield of development problems. As a younger member of the team, it’s great to have someone who has already been down that path.” – William

“The best part of working with William was seeing how quickly he could put together a professional piece of electronic equipment. In my experience, equipment like this was either handmade and very makeshift or took months or years to build.

William covered this ground in a very short time at a fraction of the cost using 3D printing. I would have had no idea where to start to achieve this result. The other big eye opener was how much could be done with an inexpensive but very powerful computer chipset. It was great to see how well he used the latest technology.” – Peter

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Hard work pays off Murray Rowland After receiving an implant in 2012, Murray Rowland worked with researchers and clinicians to test BVA’s prototype bionic eye until mid-2014. For Murray, while there was a lot of hard work, there were also moments that crystallised the importance of this research.

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“The thing that gave me hope was actually going outside, just down the street, and looking at the traffic. The traffic was making my electrodes go off like Christmas lights! Using my eyes and ears together as a unit I could see the benefit of this thing, even as an early prototype...that was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Research without us as research pioneers wouldn’t go anywhere. In fifteen or twenty years’ time when the bionic eye has reached its potential and is being implanted in people I’ll know that I played a part in it and I’ll be very proud.” – Murray

New experts Rylie Green Dr Rylie Green’s research focuses on novel materials for improving the performance of bionic devices and ensuring that materials used are stable, safe and biocompatible.

Traditionally, implanted devices including the developmental bionic eye have utilised metals such as platinum and gold for the electrodes.

Rylie and others at UNSW have been developing conductive polymers that have several advantages over the metals: they can pass charge in the form of electrons and ions, and are much more easily incorporated into the body. Additionally, they can be loaded with therapeutic drugs to improve cell survival and growth at the device interface.

Rylie has also been exploring hybrids of conducting polymers and hydrogels – which have application not only to retinal implants, but other bionic devices including cochlear implants and pacemakers. These softer more tissue-like materials can be applied to devices, such as the High-Acuity retinal array to mediate the mechanical difference between diamond and tissue. Rylie conducted studies in

collaboration with Dr David Garret in Melbourne over the course of the BVA program to pursue the possibility of coating the diamond arrays with conductive hydrogel.

“It is clear from the number of students and postdoctoral researchers who gained experience as part of the BVA program, that many new medical bionics experts were trained through this Special Research Initiative. By bringing together engineers with clinicians and patients and involving both Faculty and students, all researchers within BVA experienced a unique and extremely valuable insight into device development. The upcoming leaders in the field gained both knowledge and skills which will shape their continued research, including the necessity of multidisciplinary approaches with collaboration through clear communication.” – Rylie

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Student talent Over 50 PhD students have been part of BVA’s research. This is just a selection of their diverse contributions.

Ronald Leung Dr Ronald Leung completed his PhD with BVA in 2014. As part of the preclinical team at the Bionics Institute, Ronald investigated the ability to safely explant and reimplant the Wide-View bionic eye. He is currently a Graduate Engineer with the Defence Materiels Organisation.

Emily O’Brien Dr Emily O’Brien received her PhD, “Retinal implants: the condition of the retina during late stage degeneration” in 2012. Her work investigated the in vitro response and condition of the blind retina to different electrical stimulation strategies. Emily continues her work with medical devices as a Research Associate with the Medical Device Partnering Program at Flinders University.

Miganoosh Abrahim Dr Miganoosh Abrahim submitted her thesis “Investigation of retinal ganglion cell activation following epiretinal electrical stimulation with hexagonally arranged bipolar electrodes” in 2011.

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Upon completion she became a full time staff member with the Wide-View team based at UNSW, validating electrical stimulation protocols in an in vitro model. In 2014, Miganoosh moved to Germany to join Implandata Ophthalmic Products.

David Feng David is a PhD student with the NICTA Canberra vision processing research team.

David’s work involves running simulated mobility experiments to investigate how well the new scene representations he develops using computer vision techniques perform in various navigation tasks. David had the opportunity to run these experiments with the three bionic eye trial participants during mobility trials in Canberra in 2014.

Felix Aplin Felix began his bionic eye work at ANU with Michael Ibbotson and moved to Melbourne to continue his work with BVA. Felix has been working with researchers at the Bionics Institute, CERA and the University of Melbourne Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience to create a model of the degenerate retina. He achieves this using a pharmacological approach.

Using the model created by Felix, BVA researchers are able to test how effectively our devices can stimulate the degenerate retina.

Chih Yu (John) Yang John is a PhD student enrolled through the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNSW. His research focuses on understanding how retinal ganglion cells respond to stimulation from a bionic eye implant. Using tools such as calcium sensitive dyes and patch clamping, John is able to characterise the response from populations of retinal ganglion cells to electrical stimulation.

Susmita Saha Susmita obtained her BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. Her PhD project, conducted through the University of Melbourne and NVRI, demonstrates the differential effect of complete photoreceptor loss on the synapse densities, synaptic currents and spiking activities of ON and OFF retinal ganglion cells in degenerate retina in response to subretinal electrical stimulation.

Catapulting a research career Mohit Shivdasani Dr Mohit Shivdasani arrived in Australia in 2003 from India to pursue a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering and completed a PhD in 2009 at the Bionics Institute on Auditory Brainstem Implants – devices that electrically stimulate the auditory brainstem to restore hearing to deaf people who cannot benefit from a cochlear implant.

Straight after his PhD, Mohit started a postdoctoral position at the Bionics Institute and has been part of BVA since its formation. He played a major role in the preclinical evaluation of both Wide-View and High-Acuity devices and also joined the psychophysics team in 2012 to work with the 24-channel Wide-View prototype trial participants. In his time with BVA he has experienced many memorable moments but testing electrodes and stimulators, analysing spike recordings, listening to participants describe what they are perceiving, and winning his own NHMRC grant have been the highlights.

“BVA is the sole reason for where I stand today in the medical bionics research community. I was fresh out of a PhD and set to take the long road in hunting for a postdoctoral position had it not been for BVA to catapult my research career. Over the last five years, I have learned much about not only bionic eyes but the delicate intricacies of dealing with such a large scale project involving so many people. Yes, there have been many ups and many downs but I feel extremely lucky to have experienced them both. The absolute highlight for me was winning my own NHMRC grant which may not have happened this early in my career without the support of both BVA and the Bionics Institute.

I am sure this experience will keep me in great standing for the years to come.” – Mohit He has also won several awards including the 2006 Young Biomedical Engineer Award presented by Engineers Australia, and has been the only double recipient of the Harold Mitchell Travelling Fellowship. In 2014, Mohit was awarded an independent NHMRC new investigator project grant to assess the efficacy of novel current steering and current focusing techniques in improving the resolution of the Wide-View device.

Since his PhD, Mohit has published 29 peer-reviewed papers including eight as first or senior author in prestigious international scientific journals, as well as two book chapters.

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Working across disciplines and institutions Chris McCarthy and Matt Petoe Dr Chris McCarthy and Dr Matt Petoe began working closely together when Chris moved to Melbourne to begin integrating NICTA’s vision processing work with patient tests.

Combining their different expertise, Matt’s in biomedical engineering and clinical neuroscience, and Chris’ in computer science and computer vision, was key to developing and testing the camera and vision processing system for the prototype patient study.

Below: Dr Chris McCarthy (left) and Dr Matt Petoe with prototype implant recipient Dianne Ashworth.

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“Our collaboration started evolving from the moment I landed at the Bionics Institute when I came down from Canberra. We have worked closely together to achieve some really significant outcomes with patients.

We’ve also spent a lot of time understanding our different fields of expertise to better interface with each other. I firmly believe Matt and my ability to work so well together has seen some great collaborative outcomes for BVA in the patient study.” – Chris “Chris and I worked closely on making functional vision a reality for the implantees [with the 24-electrode prototype]. Initially, we had a roller-coaster of a time trying new paradigms in earnest, spending many weeks calibrating the video camera and the vision processing algorithms, each time discovering that the way the patients used the system was subtly different to what we had expected. We reached our goals with the vision processing in the end though.” – Matt

Eminent visitors Professor Takashi Fujikado BVA has linked with other bionic eye research groups and eminent international researchers throughout the project, regularly hosting international research leaders to Australia to share their expertise.

Visitors have included Dr Jonathan Rosen, Professor Joseph Rizzo, Dr Thomas Steiglitz, Professor Eberhart Zrenner and Professor Alan Yuille.

All visitors have been committed to sharing their research – either in the form of public talks or in intensive workshops for PhD students and Early Career Researchers. In 2014 BVA sponsored Professor Takashi Fujikado of Osaka University Medical School, (pictured here with BVA PhD student Matias Maturana) who is a part of the Japanese consortium developing a

retinal prosthesis, to visit Melbourne and Sydney. During his visit he shared his knowledge in workshops for researchers and keynote speeches.

Partnering with VESKI and the City of Melbourne, Professor Fujikado held a public talk in Melbourne on Japanese approaches to recovering vision for the blind, under the banner of Melbourne– Osaka sister cities relationship.

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“BVA is a wonderful example of the best of interdisciplinary research and what can be done when a project with clear goals and a clear value proposition is funded.

I have enjoyed this journey immensely. It has been transformative for me personally in term of my motivation, direction and research focus, and the best part has been the people I’ve met and the collaborations established.” – Professor Steven Prawer

PhD graduations as of December 2014 24

Total PhD students 51

BVA People 2011–2014

Total staff and students: 243

Early Career Researchers 54

Graduates who continued working with BVA 14

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Robotics, animation, computer vision and script wizardry Rebecca Dengate, Paulette Lieby, Adele Scott, Ashley Stacey Something that sets the BVA devices apart from international competitors is the quality and sophistication of their vision processing – the software used to transform the images from a camera into a representation that enables test participants to visually interpret and understand their environment. Rebecca Dengate, Paulette Lieby, Adele Scott and Ashley Stacey of NICTA Canberra worked closely together throughout the project to develop sophisticated software to get the most out of the vision the bionic eye can provide – first for simulation trials and later for the patient tests.

The vision processing software the team created for the patient study was essential for mobility work with the patients. It enabled the use of cameras, and also allowed researchers to do some things that had never been trialled in a bionic eye patient before – use of a depth camera and sophisticated computer vision algorithms.

(Left to right) Adele Scott, Ashley Stacey and Rebecca Dengate of NICTA Canberra.

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“We wrote large amounts of software (thousands of lines of code) to demonstrate vision processing algorithms in simulation. We ran many experiments with sighted participants using simulation of what we expected patients to see (prior to patients being implanted with the electrode array) to understand whether the new representations were helpful and which representations were the most useful.” – Ashley “We all came from slightly different backgrounds, Paulette from mathematics, me from robotics and signals, Ashley from computer vision and computer engineering, Rebecca from graphics and animation who joined us later and brought along her script wizardry and really whipped our tooling and automation into shape. We all enjoyed different aspects of the software development process too, which meant we complemented each other very well. I think we are completely different engineers from when we started the project to now. Now we understand what is required to create quality software for medical applications, but still within the context of research.” – Adele

Serving the community Maurice Skehan From 2012 to 2014 Maurice travelled to East Melbourne every week to participate in testing of his prototype bionic eye implant. Maurice has brought a generous attitude and spirit of community service to being implanted with the prototype and joining the research team as a participant.

“I realised that it [the prototype] wouldn’t benefit me and I accepted that fact before I started. I looked at it from the point of view that I would be able to help develop the first stage and that in turn somebody would benefit later. It has been a fantastic team to work with along the way and without that team we wouldn’t have made the headway we have. We’ve actually advanced further than anticipated.”– Maurice

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Making international links Alex Hadjinicolaou During his PhD research for BVA, Dr Alex Hadjinicolaou sought to discover electrical waveforms that can be used to improve the efficacy of retinal prostheses. He researched ways of creating a more meaningful sense of prosthetic vision by evoking neural activity in small sets of retinal ganglion cells. His work with BVA, and introduction to Dr Shelley Fried of the Boston Retinal Implant Project, created opportunities that have led him to the US to take up a position as a Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

“My training under Michael Ibbotson and the rest of the team at the NVRI equipped me with the necessary skills and knowledge to identify and pursue my current research interests. As part of the BVA consortium, I feel that the continual exposure to interdisciplinary research has helped to make me a more rounded researcher. I have also benefited from a professional setting in which collaborative work was highly encouraged.”

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“The regular hosting of BVA seminars provided many opportunities for discussing work with invited international researchers. I met Shelley Fried at one of these seminars. The round table of discussion that followed his talk is perhaps the biggest factor that influenced my decision to seek a position in his lab in Boston. I feel that BVA provided an environment that facilitated discussions and collaboration with external researchers, which is particularly important for Australian researchers considering our geographical isolation from other countries!” – Alex

A sense of achievement Dianne Ashworth Dianne was delighted to be the first to undergo surgery and have her prototype implant stimulated. As with many involved in the project, she was realistic about what to expect but the outcomes of testing exceeded her expectations. She recorded her experiences in a book published in 2014 – I Spy with my Bionic Eye.

“I wasn’t sitting there going ‘I have to get my eyesight back’.

For me I solely came in to help with this research and help progress it. When I first came into the research I really didn’t know what would come out of this. I never thought that I would be able to use the device to walk around and not bump into things...I feel proud and feel a sense of achievement that we’ve come so far and this first stage has come to a conclusion.”

– Dianne

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International expertise Andrew Woolley Dr Andrew Woolley joined BVA from Purdue University in the US, becoming part of the stimulation strategy team at both UNSW and UWS as a postdoctoral researcher. With a background in neurobiology, advanced microscopy, and biomedical engineering, he is interested in understanding the tissue

“In short, working in support of BVA has been wonderful. The management team at UWS and UNSW constantly strives to ensure steady progress, while also encouraging exploration into new, creative solutions.

Nigel Lovell’s enthusiastic, active leadership is perfectly complimented by John Morley’s optimistic yet serene composure.

I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to support BVA technology development, and I’m excited to carry-forward the lessons I’ve learned to meet different challenges in the future.” – Andrew

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changes that occur around implanted biomedical devices. Andrew utilised two-photon microscopy, micro-CT imaging, and various state-of-the-art histological methods to image the functional integration of experimental biomedical implants.

Within BVA he focused on imaging cellular physiology, following when excitable cells are firing in an area of the retina or brain given stimulation from nearby electrodes.

Bionic eyes to brain machines Nick Opie and Sam John Dr Sam John and Dr Nick Opie both completed PhDs with BVA. Both have taken their expertise gained with BVA and are now applying it to an emerging realm of medical bionics – converting thought into movement through brain devices.

Sam’s PhD investigated the efficacy of retinal stimulation with the aim of developing effective stimulation parameters to inform patient tests, during which he also got the opportunity to work with the psychophysics team in preparation for the first tests with test participants.

Nick’s PhD investigated the thermal properties of retinal implants – finding the amount of heat that can be tolerated by retinal tissue to ensure BVA devices are safe as well as functional. He too continued as part of BVA after completing his PhD, working as surgical program coordinator at CERA. Sam and Nick are both now part of the Melbourne Bionics Laboratories at the University of Melbourne, taking up positions as postdoctoral researchers. They are now working alongside each other to develop a device capable of recording and stimulating brain activity for use as novel treatment for patients with paralysis caused by spinal cord injury, stroke and traumatic limb amputation, enabling the wilful control of a prosthetic limb or exoskeleton by a person with paralysis.

“Nick and I are now working together to develop a minimally invasive brain machine interface. Nick fabricates the devices and I work on recording and analysing the data. I use this data to develop algorithms to convert thought into movement of an external device.” – Sam “Having worked for BVA I have a much larger appreciation and understanding for the amount of work required to take a device from initial design, fabrication and preclinical trials through to human implantation and have utmost respect for the highly committed BVA team that were able to achieve this milestone in such a short timeframe.

I gained a great deal of knowledge from the multidisciplinary and highly skilled people working on all facets of the project and am attempting to apply what I have learnt to my current project.” – Nick

The BVA team in 2011

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“I became a scientist because I wanted to do something beneficial for the world. However, research rarely results in near-term tangible outcomes. So being part of the BVA team and being able to actively contribute to cutting edge research which actually transitioned into the clinical realm has been a dream come true. This has been a once in a lifetime experience and one day I hope to tell my grandkids about BVA.” – Dr David Nayagam 64 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Publications listing Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 65

BVA Publications 2010–2014 Book chapters and sections Ayton, L.N. (2014). “Assessment of Prosthetic Vision” Encyclopaedia of Computational Neuroscience, Jaeger, D., and Jung, R. (Eds), Springer New York, 5 pages.

Ayton, L.N., Guymer, R.H., Allen, P.J., and Luu, C.D. (2014). “Bionic Eyes: Vision Restoration through Electronic or Photovoltaic Stimulation” Regenerative Biology of the Eye, Pebay, A. (Ed), Springer New York, pp 257 – 273.

Chen, S.C., Hallum, L.E., Wong, Y.T., Dommel, N.B., ByrnesPreston, P.J., Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2010). “Artificial vision” Wiley Encyclopedia on Biomedical Engineering, Akay, M. (Ed), New York, USA, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 10 pages.

Dagnelie, G., and Stronks, H.C. (2014). “Prosthetic Vision, Perceptual Effects” Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience, Jaeger, D., and Jung, R. (Eds), Springer New York, 4 pages.

Dokos, S. (2014). “Computational Models of Neural Retina” Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience, Jaeger, D., and Jung, R. (Eds), Springer New York, 5 pages.

Fox, K. (2011). “Building a Bionic Eye” Physics World, issue 24, pp 44 – 45.

Fox, K., and Prawer, S. (2014).

“Neural circuits and in vivo monitoring using diamond” Quantum Information Processing with Diamond: Principles and Applications, Prawer, S., and Aharonovich, I. (Eds), Woodhead Publishing, pp 291 – 304.

Fox, K., Garrett, D.J., Burns, O., Shivdasani, M.N., and Meffin, H. (2014). “The bionic eye: A review of multi-electrode arrays” Handbook 66 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

of Bioelectronics, Carrara, S. and Iniewski, K. (Eds), Cambridge University Press.

Green, R.A., Baek, S.C., Lovell, N.H., and Poole-Warren, L.A. (2010).

“Nanostructured conductive polymers as biomaterials” Nanostructured Conductive Polymers, Eftekhari, A. (Ed), Chichester, UK, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., pp 707 – 736.

Hallum, L.E., and Lovell, N.H. (2011). “Image Analysis, Information Theory and Prosthetic Vision” Visual Prosthetics: Physiology, Bioengineering and Rehabilitation, Dagnelie, G. (Ed), Springer US, pp 343 – 354.

Lovell, N.H. (2014). “Retinal/ Visual interfaces (model, theory, technique): Overview.”

Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience, Jaeger, D., and Jung, R. (Eds), Springer New York, 4 pages.

Morley, J.W., and Cameron, M. (2014). “Retinal Neurophysiology” Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience, Jaeger, D., and Jung, R. (Eds), Springer New York, 3 pages.

Shepherd, R.K. (2014). “Bionics and the nervous system” Biology: An Australian Focus, Ladiges, P., Evans, B., Saint, R., and Knox, B. (Eds), North Ryde, McGraw Hill.

Shepherd, R.K., Fallon, J.B., and McDermott, H.J. (2012). “Medical Bionics” Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation: Principles and Applications, Zhou, S.A., and Zhou, L. (Eds), Amsterdam, Elsevier, 10 pages.

Suaning, G. J. (2014). Visual Prosthesis, Suprachoroidal, and Transretinal Devices. Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience, D. Jaeger, and Jung, R., Springer New York: 2.

Wilke, R.G.H., Moghadam, G.K., Dokos, S., Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2010). “Stimulation of the retinal network in bionic vision devices: From multielectrode arrays to pixelated vision Neural Information Processing.”

Theory and Algorithms, Wong, K., Mendis, B., and Bouzerdoum, A. (Eds), Springer Berlin Heidelberg, vol 6443, pp 140 – 147.

and Mathematical Methods in Medicine, article 951234, 16 pages

Yin, S., Dokos, S., and Lovell, N.H. (2013). “Bidomain Modeling of Neural Tissue” Neural Engineering, He, B. (Ed), Springer US, pp 389 – 404.

Aregueta-Robles, U.A., Woolley, A.J., Poole-Warren, L.A., Lovell, N.H., and Green, R.A. (2014). “Organic Electrode Coatings for Next Generation Neural Interfaces.” Frontiers in Neuroengineering, vol 7, no 15, pp 1 – 18.

Peer-reviewed journal articles Abramian, M., Lovell, N.H., Habib, A., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G.J., and Dokos, S. (2014). “Quasimonopolar electrical stimulation of the retina: A computational modelling study.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 11, no 2, article 025002, 18 pages.

Abramian, M., Lovell, N.H., Morley, J., Suaning, G., and Dokos, S. (2014). “Activation and inhibition of retinal ganglion cells in response to epiretinal electrical stimulation: A computational modelling.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 12, no 1, article 016002, 17 pages.

Abramian, M., Lovell, N.H., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G.J., and Dokos, S. (2011). “Activation of retinal ganglion cells following epiretinal electrical stimulation with hexagonally-arranged bipolar electrodes.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 8, no 3, article 035004, 18 pages.

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

Aplin, F.P., Luu, C.D., Vessey, K.A., Guymer, R.H., Shepherd, R.K., and Fletcher, E.L. (2014). “ATP induced photoreceptor death in a feline model of retinal degeneration.”

Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 55, no 12, pp 8319 – 8329.

Ayton, L.N., Apollo, N.V., Varsamidis, M., Dimitrov, P., Guymer, R.H., and Luu, C.D. (2014). “Assessing Residual Visual Function in Severe Vision Loss.” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 55, no 3, pp 1332 – 1338.

Ayton, L.N., Blamey, P.J., Guymer, R.H., Luu, C.D., Nayagam, D.A.X., Sinclair, N.C., Shivdasani, M.N., Yeoh, J., McCombe, M.F., Briggs, R.J., Opie, N.L., Villalobos, J., Dimitrov, P.N., Varsamidis, M., Petoe, M.A., McCarthy, C.D., Barnes, N., Burkitt, A.N., Williams, C.E., Shepherd, R.K., Allen, P.J. for the Bionic Vision Australia Research Consortium. (2014).

“First-in-human Trial of a Novel Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis.”

PLoS ONE, vol 9, no 12, article e115239, 26 pages.

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.

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.

Bae, S.H., Che, J.H., Seo, J.M., Jeong, J., Kim, E.T., Lee, S.W., Koo, K.I., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., Cho, D.I., Kim, S.J., and Chung, H. (2012). “In vitro biocompatibility of various polymer-based microelectrode arrays for retinal prosthesis.” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 53, no 6, pp 2653 – 2657.

Baek, S.C., Green, R.A., and Poole-Warren, L.A. (2014). “Effects of dopants on the biomechanical properties of conducting polymer films on platinum electrodes” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, vol 102, no 8, pp 2743 – 2754.

Barnes, N. (2012). “The role of computer vision in prosthetic vision.” Image and Vision Computing, vol 30, no 8, pp 478 – 479.

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, article e68882, 12 pages.

Chang, D.C., Dokos, S., Lovell, N.H. (2011). “Temporo-spatial model construction using the MML and software framework.”

IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol 58, no 12, pp 3528 – 3531.

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, vol 8, no 1, pp 108 – 118.

Cicione, R., Fallon, J.B., Rathbone, G.D., Williams, C.E. and Shivdasani,

M.N. (2014). “Spatiotemporal interactions in the visual cortex following paired electrical stimulation of the retina.”

Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 55, no 12, pp 7726 – 7738.

Cicione, R., Shivdasani, M.N., Fallon, J.B., Luu, C.D., Allen, P.J., Rathbone, G.D., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. (2012).

“Visual cortex responses to suprachoroidal electrical stimulation of the retina: effects of electrode return configuration.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 9, no 3, article 036009, 14 pages.

Dumm, G., Fallon, J.B., Williams, C.E., and Shivdasani, M.N. (2014).

“Virtual Electrodes by Current Steering in Retinal Prostheses” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 55, no 12, pp 8077 – 8085.

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, article 011002, 17 pages.

Felic, G.K., Ng, D., and Skafidas, E. (2013). “Investigation of Frequency-Dependent Effects in Inductive Coils for Implantable Electronics.” IEEE Transaction on Magnetics, vol 49, no 4, pp 1353 – 1360.

Finger, R.P., McSweeney, S.C., Deverell, L.A., O’Hare, F., Bentley, S.A., Luu, C.D., Guymer, R.H., and Ayton, L.N. (2014). “Developing an instrumental activities of daily living tool as part of the Low Vision Assessment of Daily Activities (LoVADA) protocol.” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 55, no 12, pp 8458 – 8466.

Finger, R.P., Tellis, B., Crewe, J., Keeffe, J.E., Ayton, L.N., and Guymer, R.H. (2014). “Developing the Impact of Vision Impairment – Very Low Vision (IVI-VLV) questionnaire as part of the LOVADA protocol” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 55, no 10, pp 6150 – 6158.

Ganesan, K., Garrett, D.J., Ahnood, A., Shivdasani, M.N., Tong, W., Turnley, A., Fox, K., Meffin, H. and Prawer, S. (2014). “An all diamond, hermetic electrical feedthrough array for a retinal prosthesis.” Biomaterials, vol 35, no 3, pp 908 – 915.

Garrett, D., Saunders, A., McGowan, C., Specks, J., Ganesan, K., Meffin, H., Williams, R., and Nayagam, D. (2014). “In vivo biocompatibility of boron doped and nitrogen included conductivediamond for use in medical implants.” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research B, doi: 10.1002/ jbm.b.33331, 8 pages.

Garrett, D.J., Ganesan, K., Stacey, A., Fox, K., Meffin, H., and Prawer, S. (2012). “Ultra-nanocrystalline diamond electrodes: optimization towards neural stimulation applications.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 9, no 1, article 016002, 10 pages.

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.

Green, R.A., Hassarati, R.T., Bouchinet, L., Lee, C.S., Cheong, G.L.M., Yu, J., Dodds, C.W.D., Suaning, G.J., Poole-Warren, L.A., and Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Substrate

dependent stability of conducting polymer coatings on medical electrodes.” Biomaterials, vol 33, no 25, pp 5875 – 5886.

Green, R.A., Hassarati, R.T., Goding, J.A., Baek, S.C., Lovell, N.H., Martens, P.J., and PooleWarren, L.A. (2012). “Conductive hydrogels: Mechanically robust hybrids for use as biomaterials.”

Macromolecule Bioscience, vol 12, no 4, pp 494 – 501.

Green, R.A., Lovell, N.H., and Poole-Warren, L.A. (2010).

“Impact of co-incorporating laminin peptide dopants and neurotrophic growth factors on conducting polymer properties” Acta Biomaterialia, vol 6, no 1, pp 63 – 71.

Green, R.A., Matteucci, P., Dodds, C.W.D., Palmer, J., Deuck, W.F., Hassarati, R.T., Byrnes-Preston, P.J., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2014). “Laser interference patterning of platinum electrodes for safe neurostimulation” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 11, no 5, article 056017, 17 pages.

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, article 016009, 11 pages.

Green, R.A., Ordonez, J.S., Schuettler, M., Poole-Warren, L.A., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2010). “Cytotoxicity of implantable microelectrode arrays produced by laser micromachining” Biomaterials, vol 31, no 5, pp 886 – 893.

Green, R.A., Toor, H., Dodds, C.W.D., and Lovell, N.H. (2012).

“Variation in performance of Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 67

platinum electrodes with size and surface roughness.” Journal of Sensors and Materials, vol 24, no 4, pp 165 – 180.

Guenther, T., Kong, C., Lu. H., Svehla, M.J., Lovell, N.H., Ruys, A., and Suaning, G.J. (2014).

“Pt-AI2O3 interfaces in co-fired ceramics for use in miniaturized neuroprosthetic implants.” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research: Part B – Applied Biomaterials, vol 102, no 3, pp 500 – 507.

Guenther, T., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2012). “Bionic vision: system architectures – a review.”

Expert Review of Medical Devices, vol 9, no 1, pp 33 – 48.

Guo, T., Al Abed, A., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. (2013). “Optimisation of a Generic Ionic Model of Cardiac Myocyte Electrical Activity” Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine, Article 706195, 20 pages.

Guo, T., Tsai, D., Bai, S., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. (2014).

“Understanding the retina: a review of computational models of the retina from the single cell to network level.” Critical Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, vol 42, no 5, pp 419 – 436.

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, article 036013, 8 pages.

Hadjinicolaou, A.E., Leung, R.T., Garrett, D.J., Ganesan, K., Fox, K., Nayagam, D.A.X., Shivdasani, M.N., Meffin, H., Ibbotson, M.R., Prawer, S., and O’Brien, B.J. (2012).

“Electrical stimulation of retinal ganglion cells with diamond and the development of an all diamond retinal prosthesis.” Biomaterials, vol 33, no 24, pp 5812 – 5820.

68 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Hadjinicolaou, A.E., Savage, C.O., Apollo, N.V., Garrett, D.J., Cloherty, S.L. Ibbotson, M.R., and O’Brien, B.J. (2014). “Optimizing the electrical stimulation of retinal ganglion cells” IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2014.2361900, 13 pages.

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.

Hunt, J., Ibbotson, M.R., and Goodhill, G. (2012). “Sparse coding on the spot: spontaneous retinal waves suffice for orientation selectivity.” Neural Computation, vol 24, no 9, pp 2422 – 2433.

Ibbotson, M.R. (2012). “Bionic eyes – where are we and what does the future hold?” Clinical and Experimental Optometry, vol 95, no 5, pp 471 – 472.

Irons, J., McKone, E., Dumbleton, R., Barnes, N., He, X., Provis, J., Ivanovici, C., and Kwa, A. (2014).

“A new theoretical approach to improving face recognition in disorders of central vision: Face caricaturing.” Journal of Vision, vol 14, no 2, pp 1 – 29.

Joarder, S.A., Abramian, M., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. (2011). “A continuum model of retinal electrical stimulation.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 8, no 6, article 066006, 13 pages.

John, S.E., Shivdasani, M.N., Leuenberger, J., Fallon, J.B., Shepherd, R.K., Millard, R.E., Rathbone, G.D., and Williams, C.E. (2011). “An automated system for rapid evaluation of highdensity electrode arrays in neural prostheses.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 8, no 3, article 036011, 11 pages.

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, article 056011, 12 pages.

Jung, L.H., Lehmann, T., Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2013).

“Semi-static threshold-triggered delay elements for low power operation” Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, vol 75, no 3, pp 435 – 445.

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.

Kameneva, T., Meffin, H., and Burkitt, A.N. (2011). “Modelling intrinsic electrophysiological properties of ON and OFF retinal ganglion cells.” Journal of Computational Neuroscience, vol 31, no 3, pp 547 – 561.

Kameneva, T., Zarellia, D., Nesic, D., Grayden, D.B., Burkitt, A.N., and Meffin, H. (2014). “A comparison of open-loop and closed-loop stimulation strategies to control excitation of retinal ganglion cells” Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, vol 14, pp 164 – 174.

Kiral-Kornek, F.I., O’SullivanGreene, E., Savage, C., McCarthy, C., Grayden, D., and Burkitt, A. (2014). “Improved visual acuity in letter perception through edge orientation encoding in a retinal prosthesis simulation” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 11, no 6, article 066002, 12 pages.

Lehmann, T., Chun, H., and Yang, Y. (2012). “Power saving circuit design techniques for implantable neuro-stimulators.” Journal of

Circuits, Systems and Computers (Special Issue), vol 21, no 6, article 1240016, 14 pages.

Leung, R. T., Nayagam, D.A.X., Williams, R.A., Allen, P.J., Salinas-La Rosa, C.M., Luu, C.D., Shivdasani, M.N., Ayton, L.N., Basa, M., Yeoh, J., Saunders, A.L., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. (2014). “The safety and efficacy of explanting and replacing suprachoroidal electrode arrays in a feline model.” Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, doi: 10.1111/ceo.12428, 12 pages.

Leung, R., Shivdasani, M.N., Nayagam, D.A.X., and Shepherd, R.K. (2014). “In vivo and in vitro comparison charge injection capacity of platinum macroelectrodes.” IEEE Transaction on Biomedical Engineering, doi: 10.1109/ TBME.2014.2366514, 10 pages.

Lovell, N.H., Morley, J.W., Chen, S.C., Hallum, L.E., and Suaning, G.J. (2010). “Biological-Machine systems integration: Engineering the neural interface.” Proceedings of the IEEE, vol 98, no 3, pp 418 – 431.

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.

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, vol 36, no 2, pp 157 – 175.

McCarthy, C., Walker, J., Lieby, P., Scott, A., and Barnes, N. (2014). “Mobility and low contrast trip hazard avoidance using augmented depth.” Journal of

Neural Engineering, vol 12, no 1, article 016003, 15 pages.

McCarthy, C.D., and Barnes, N. (2012). “A unified strategy for landing and docking using spherical flow divergence.” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol 34, no 5, pp 1024 – 1031.

Meffin, H., Tahayori, B., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. (2012).

“Modeling extracellular electrical stimulation: I. Derivation and interpretation of neurite equations.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 9, no 6, article 065005, 17 pages.

Meffin, H., Tahayori, B., Sergeev, E.N., Grayden, D.B., Mareels, I.M.Y., and Burkitt, A.N. (2014). “Modeling Extracellular Electrical Stimulation: III. Derivation and Interpretation of Macro Equations.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 11, no 6, article 065004, 22 pages.

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, article e73130, 12 pages.

Moghaddam, G.K., Lovell, N.H., Wilke, R.G., Suaning, G.J., and Dokos, S. (2014). “Performance Optimization of Current Focusing and Virtual Electrode Strategies in Retinal Implants.” Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, vol 117, no 2, pp 334 – 342.

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, no 78, article e50411, 11 pages.

Nayagam, D.A.X., Williams, R.A., Allen, P.J., Shivdasani, M.N., Luu, C.D., Salinas-LaRosa, C., Finch, S., Ayton, L.N., Saunders, A.L., McPhedran, M., McGowan, C., Villalobos, J., Fallon, J.B., Wise, A.K., Yeoh, J., Xu, J., Feng, H., Millard, R., McWade, M., Thien, P.C., Williams, C.E., and Shepherd, R.K. (2014). “Chronic Electrical Stimulation with a Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis: A Preclinical Safety and Efficacy Study.” PLoS ONE, vol 9, no 5, article e97182, 21 pages.

O’Brien, E.E., Greferath, U., and Fletcher, E.L. (2013). “The effect of photoreceptor degeneration on ganglion cell morphology” Journal of Comparative Neurology, vol 522, no 5, pp 1155 – 1170.

O’Brien, E.E., Greferath, U., Vessey, K.A., Jobling, A.I., and Fletcher, E.L. (2012). “Electronic restoration of vision in those with photoreceptor degenerations” Clinical and Experimental Optometry, vol 95, no 5, pp 473 – 483.

Opie, N., Ayton, L., Apollo, N.V., Ganesan, K., Guymer, R., and Luu, C. (2014). “Optical Coherence Tomography-Guided Retinal Prosthesis Design: Model of Degenerated Retinal Curvature and Thickness for Patient-Specific Devices” Artificial Organs, vol 38, no 6, pp 82 – 94.

Opie, N.L., Grayden, D.B., Meffin, H., and Burkitt, A.N. (2012).

“Heating of the eye by a retinal prosthesis: modeling, cadaver and In vivo study.” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol 59, no 2, pp 339 – 345.

Opie, N.L., Greferath, U., Vessey, K.A., Burkitt, A.N., Meffin, H., Grayden, D.B., and Fletcher, E.L. (2012). “Retinal prosthesis safety: Alterations in microglia morphology due to thermal damage and retinal implant contact.” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 53, no 12, pp 7802 – 7812.

Poole-Warren, L.A., Lovell, N.H., Baek, S.C., and Green, R.A. (2010).

“Development of bioactive conducting polymers for neural interfaces.” Expert Review of Medical Devices, vol 7, no 1, pp 35 – 49.

Rizzo, J.F., and Ayton, L.N. (2014).

“Psychophysical Testing of Visual Prosthetic Devices: A Call to Establish a Multi-National Joint Task Force.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 11, no 2, article 020301, 2 pages.

Saunders, A.L., Williams, C.E., Heriot, W., Briggs, R., 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., Guymer, R., and Allen, P.J. (2014). “Development of a surgical procedure for implantation of a prototype suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis” Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology, vol 42, no 7, pp 665 – 674.

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, article 016003, 9 pages.

Shen, C., and Li, H. (2010). “On the dual formulation of boosting algorithms.” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol 32, no 12, pp 2216 – 2231.

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.

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.

Shivdasani, M.N., Fallon, J.B., Luu, C.D., Cicione, R., Allen, P.J., Morley, J.W., and Williams, C.E. (2012). “Visual cortex responses to single and simultaneous multiple electrode stimulation of the retina: implications for retinal prostheses.”

Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 53, no 10, pp 6291 – 6300.

Shivdasani, M.N., Luu, C.D., Cicione, R., Fallon, J.B., Allen, P.J., Leuenberger, J., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. (2010). “Evaluation of stimulus parameters and electrode geometry for an effective suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis.”

Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 7, no 3, article 036008, 11 pages.

Shivdasani, M.N., Sinclair, N.C., Dimitrov, P.N., Varsamidis, M., Ayton, L.N., Luu, C.D., Perera, T., McDermott, H.J., and Blamey, P.J. for the Bionic Vision Australia Consortium (2014).

“Factors Affecting Perceptual Thresholds in a Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol 55, no 10, pp 6467 – 6481.

Tahayori, B., Meffin, H., Dokos, S., Burkitt, A.N., and Grayden, D.B. (2012). “Modeling extracellular electrical stimulation: II. Computational validation and numerical results.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 9, no 6, article 065006, 17 pages.

Tahayori, B., Meffin, H., Sergeev, E.N., Mareels, I.M.Y., Burkitt, A.N., and Grayden, D.B. (2014).

“Modelling extracellular electrical stimulation: part IV. Effect of the cellular composition of neural tissue on its spatiotemporal filtering properties.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 11, no 6, article 065005, 21 pages.

Tong, W., Fox, K., Ganesan, K., Turnley, A.M., Shimoni, O., Tran, P.A., Lohrmann, A., McFarlane, T., Ahnood, A., Garrett, D.J., Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 69

Meffin, H., O’Brien-Simpson, N.M., Reynolds, E.C., and Prawer, S. (2014). “Fabrication of planarised conductively patterned diamond for antibacterial bioapplications” Materials Science and Engineering C, vol 43, pp 135 – 144.

Tran, N., Bai, S., Yang, J., Chun, H., Kavehei, O., Yang, Y., Muktamath, V., Ng, D., Meffin, H., Halpern, M., and Skafidas, S. (2014). “A Complete 256-Electrode Retinal Prosthesis Chip.” IEEE Journal of solid-state circuits, vol 49, no 3, pp 751 – 765.

Tsai, D., Chen, S.C., Protti, D.A., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Responses of retinal ganglion cells to extracellular electrical stimulation, from single cell to population: model-based analysis.” PLoS One, vol 7, no 12, article e53357, 16 pages.

Tsai, D., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2011).

“Frequency-dependent reduction of voltage-gated sodium channels modulates retinal ganglion cell response rate to electrical stimulation” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 8, no 6, article 066007, 12 pages.

Vessey, K.A., and Fletcher, E.L. (2012). “Rod and cone pathway signalling is altered in the PX27 knock out mouse.” PLoS One, vol 7, no 1, article e29990, 16 pages.

Vessey, K.A., Greferath, U., Aplin, F., Jobling, A., Phipps, J.A., Ho, T., Delongh, R.U., and Fletcher, E.L. (2014). “Adenosine tri-phosphate induced photoreceptor death and retinal remodelling in rats.” Journal of Comparative Neurology, vol 552, no 13, pp 2928 – 2950.

Vessey, K.A., Jobling, A.I., Greferath, U., and Fletcher, E.L. (2012). “The role of the P2X7 receptor in the retina: cell signalling and dysfunction” Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 723, pp 813 – 819.

70 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Villalobos, J., Allen, P.J., McCombe, M.F., Ulaganathan, M., Zamir, E., Ng, D.C., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. (2012).

“Development of a surgical approach for a wide-view suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis: evaluation of implantation trauma.”

Graefe’s Archive for Clinical Experimental Ophthalmology, vol 250, no 3, pp 399 – 407.

Villalobos, J., Fallon, J.B., Nayagam, D.A.X., Shivdasani, M.N., Luu, C.D., Allen, P.J., Shepherd, R.K., and Williams, C.E. (2014).

“Cortical activation following chronic passive implantation of a wide-field suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 11, no 4, article 046017, 10 pages.

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.

Wang, P., Shen, C., Barnes, N., and Hong, Z. (2012). “Fast and robust object detection using asymmetric totally corrective boosting.” IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, vol 23, no 1, pp 33 – 46.

Wilke, R.G.H., Gabel, V.P., Sachs, H., Schmidt, K.B., Gekeler, F., Besch, D., Szurman, P. , Stett, A. , Wilhelm, B. , Peters, T. , Harscher, A., Greppmaier, U. , Kibbel, S., Benav, H., Bruckmann, A. , Stingl, K. , Kusnyerik, A., and Zrenner, E. (2011). “Spatial resolution and perception of patterns mediated by a subretinal 16-electrode array in patients blinded by hereditary retinal dystrophies.” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science vol 52, no 8, pp 5995-6003.

Wilke, R.G.H., Moghadam, G.K., Lovell, N.H., Suaning, G.J., and Dokos, S. (2011). “Electric crosstalk impairs spatial resolution of multi-electrode arrays in retinal implants.” Journal of Neural Engineering, vol 8, no 4, article 046016, 11 pages.

Wong, R.C.S., Cloherty, S.L., Ibbotson, M.R., and O’Brien, B.J. (2012). “Intrinsic physiological properties of rat retinal ganglion cells with a comparative analysis” Journal of Neurophysiology, vol 108, no 7, pp 2008 – 2023.

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

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

Yang, J., Tran, N., Bai, S., Ng, D.C., Halpern, M.E., and Skafidas, E. (2010). “A super low power CMOS receiver for high resolution epi-retinal prosthesis.” Journal of Energy and Power Engineering, vol 4, no 8, pp 32 – 39.

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.

Peer-reviewed full conference papers Abramian, M., Dokos, S., Morley, J.W., and Lovell, N.H. (2010).

“Activation of ganglion cell axons following epiretinal electrical stimulation with hexagonal electrodes” 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 31st August – 4th September, Buenos Aires, Argentina, pp 6753 – 6756.

Abramian, M., Lovell, N.H., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G.J., and Dokos, S.

(2012). “Computational model of electrical stimulation of a retinal ganglion cell with hexagonally arranged electrodes” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 3029 – 3032.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 6543 – 6546.

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), 13th – 16th October, Sydney, Australia, 4 pages.

Al Abed, A., Yin, S., Lovell, N.H., Suaning, G.J., and Dokos, S. (2012). “A convolution based method for calculating dendritic inputs in a continuum model of the retina” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 215 – 218.

Alvarez, J. M., Salzmann, M., and Barnes, N. (2014). “Large-scale semantic co-labelling of image sets” IEEE Winter Applications of Computer Vision (WACV 2014), 24th – 26th March, Colorado, USA, pp 501 – 508.

Alvarez, J.M., Salzmann, M., and Barnes, N. (2014). “Data-driven road detection” IEEE Winter Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 24th – 26th March, Colorado, USA, pp 1134 – 1141.

Anenden, M.P., Svehla, M., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2011).

“Process development for dry etching polydimethylsiloxane for neural electrodes” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 2977 – 2980.

Ansari, U., Dokos, S., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2010).

“Modeling of microcavity electrodes for medical implants” 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 31st August – 4th September, Buenos Aires, Argentina, pp 1515 – 1518.

Ansari, U., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2012). “Measuring the electric field of bioelectrodes in saline during stimulation” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 807 – 810.

for Visual Prostheses: A Clinical Perspective.” IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), 15th – 18th September, Melbourne, Australia, pp 1540 – 1544.

Bai, S., and Skafidas, E. (2012).

“A simple voltage reference with ultra supply independency” IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 20th – 23rd May, Seoul, Korea, pp 2829 – 2832.

Bai, S., and Skafidas, E. (2014).

“On the Analysis of using 3-coil Wireless Power Transfer System in Retinal Prosthesis” 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 26th – 30th August, Chicago, US, pp 6104 – 6107.

Barnes, N. (2013). “An Overview of Vision Processing in Implantable Vision Prosthetic Vision” IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), 15th – 18th September, Melbourne, Australia, pp 1532 – 1535.

Midwest Symposium on Circuits and systems (MWSCAS), 5th – 8th August, Boise, Idaho, pp 510 – 513.

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), 19th – 23rd May, Beijing, China, pp 1885 – 1888.

Chun, H., Tran, N., Yang, Y., Kavehei, O., Bai, S., and Skafidas, E. (2012). “A precise charge balancing and compliance voltage monitoring stimulator front-end for 1024-electrodes retinal prosthesis” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 3001 – 3004.

Chun, H., Yang, Y., and Lehmann, T. (2012). “Required matching accuracy of biphasic current pulse in multi-channel current mode bipolar stimulation for safety” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 3025 – 3028.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 6551 – 6554.

Barnes, N., He, X., McCarthy, C.D., Horne, L., Kim, J., Scott, A.F., and Lieby, P. (2012). “The role of vision processing in prosthetic vision” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 308 – 311.

Aregueta-Robles, U.A., Lim, K.S., Woolley, A.J., Martens, P.J., Poole-Warren, L.A., Lovell, N.H., and Green, R.A. (2014). “Living electrodes: 3D electroactive neural networks with hydrogels.” 23rd Conference of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering (ASBTE), 22nd – 24th April, Lorne, Australia.

Barriga-Rivera, A., and Suaning, G.J. (2011). “Digital image processing for visual prosthesis: Filtering implications.” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 4860 – 4863.

Cloherty, S.L., Hietanen, M.A., Suaning, G.J., and Ibbotson, M.R. (2010). “Focal activation of primary visual cortex following suprachoroidal electrical stimulation of the retina: Intrinsic signal imaging and linear model analysis.” 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 31st August – 4th September, Buenos Aires, Argentina, pp 6765 – 6768.

Chun, H., and Skafidas, E. (2012).

“A low-power, small-area and programmable bandgap reference” 55th IEEE International

Cloherty, S.L., Wong, R.C.S., Hadjinicolaou, A.E., Meffin, H., Ibbotson, M.R., and O’Brien, B.J. (2012). “Epiretinal electrical

Ayton, L.N., Luu, C.D., Bentley, S.A., Allen, P.J., and Guymer, R.H. (2013). “Image Processing

stimulation and the Inner limiting membrane in rat retina” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 2989 – 2992.

Dodds, C.W.D., Schuettler, M., Guenther, T., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2011).

“Advancements in electrode design and laser techniques for fabricating micro-electrode arrays as part of a retinal prosthesis” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 636 – 639.

Duo, D., Matteucci, P.B., ByrnesPreston, P.J., and Suaning, G.J. (2012). “Analysis of the voltage response to identify macromolecule quantities in an electrolyte” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 3756 – 3759.

Eiber, C.D., Morley, J.W., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G. (2014).

“A Cortical Integrate-and-Fire Neural Network Model for Blind Decoding of Visual Prosthetic Stimulation” 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 26th – 30th August, Chicago, USA, pp 1715 – 1718.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 5283 – 5286.

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 71

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

Ganesan, K., Stacey, A., Meffin, H., Lichter, S., Greferath, U., Fletcher, E.L., and Prawer, S. (2010). “Diamond penetrating electrode array for epi-retinal prosthesis” 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 31st August – 4th September, Buenos Aires, Argentina, pp 6757 – 6760.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 3246 – 3249.

Green, R.A., Chao, D., Hassarati, R., Goding, J.A., Byrnes-Preston, P.J., Suaning, G.J., Poole-Warren, L.A., and Lovell, N.H. (2011).

“Electrochemical stability of poly(ethylene dioxythiophene) electrodes” 5th International IEEE/ EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering (NER), 27th April – 1st May, Sydney, Australia, pp 566 – 569.

Green, R.A., Devillaine, F., Dodds, C.W.D., Matteucci, P.B., Chen, S.C., Byrnes-Preston, P.J., Poole-Warren, L.A., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2010).

“Conducting polymer electrodes for visual prostheses” 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 31st August – 4th September, Buenos Aires, Argentina, pp 6769 – 6772.

Guenther, T., Dodds, C.W.D., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. 72 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

(2011). “Chip-scale hermetic feedthroughs for implantable bionics” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 6717 – 6720.

Guenther, T., Mintri, A., Lim, W.W., Jung, L.H., Lehmann, T., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2011). “Laser-micromachined, chip-scaled ceramic carriers for implantable neurostimulators.”

33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, San Diego, USA, pp 1085 – 1088.

Guo, T., Lovell, N.H., Tsai, D., Twyford, P., Fried, S., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G., and Dokos, S. (2014). “Selective Activation of ON and OFF Retinal Ganglion Cells to High Frequency Electrical Stimulation: A Computational Modeling Study.” 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 26th – 30th August, Chicago, USA, pp 6108 – 6111.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 4553 – 4556.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 6539 – 6542.

Guo, T., Tsai, D., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. (2014). “The Unique Characteristics of ON and OFF Retinal Ganglion Cells: A Modelling Study” 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 26th – 30th August, Chicago, USA, pp 6096 – 6099.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 4557 – 4560.

Guo, T., Tsai, D., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Dokos, S. (2012).

“Modeling normal and rebound excitation in mammalian retinal ganglion cells” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 5506 – 5509.

Habib, A.G., Cameron, M.A., Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Morley, J.W. (2012). “Efficacy of the hexpolar configuration in localizing the activation of retinal ganglion cells under electrical stimulation” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 2776 – 2779.

He, X., Kim, J., and Barnes, N. (2012). “A face-based visual fixation system for prosthetic vision” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, pp 2981 – 2984.

Horne, L., Alvarez, J., and Barnes, N. (2013). “Exploiting Sparsity for Real Time Video Labelling” ICCV Workshop on Computer Vision in Vehicle Technology: From Earth to Mars, 8th December, Sydney, Australia, pp 632 – 637.

Horne, L., Barnes, N., McCarthy, C.D., and He, X. (2012). “Image segmentation for enhancing symbol recognition in prosthetic vision” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 2792 – 2795.

Jung, L.H., Shany, N., Lehmann, T., Preston, P., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2011). “Towards a chip scale neurostimulator: System architecture of a current-driven 98 channel neurostimulator via a two-wire interface.” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 6737 – 6740.

Kameneva, T., Grayden, D.B., Meffin, H., and Burkitt, A.N. (2011). “Simulating electrical stimulation of degenerative retinal ganglion cells with biphasic pulse trains” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 7103 – 7106.

Kameneva, T., Grayden, D.B., Meffin, H., and Burkitt, A.N. (2014).

“Feedback Stimulation Strategy: Control of Retinal Ganglion Cells Activation.” 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Science (EMBC), 26th – 30th August, Chicago, USA, pp 1703 – 1706.

Kameneva, T., Meffin, H., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. (2012). “Sinusoidal stimulation of

retinal bipolar cells: A modeling study.” 9th IASTED International Conference on Biomedical Engineering (BioMed), Innsbruck, Austria, 6 pages.

Modelling and Characterisation.”

IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 30th May – 2nd June, Paris, France, pp 3128 – 3131.

Kiral-Kornek, F.I., Savage, C.O., O’Sullivan-Greene, E., Burkitt, A.N., and Grayden, D.B. (2013). “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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 3563 – 3566.

Lehmann, T., Jung, L.H., Moghe, Y., Chun, H., Yang, Y., and Alex, A.Z. (2012). “Low-power circuit structures for chip-scale stimulating implants” IEEE Asia Pacific Conference on Circuits and Systems (APCCAS), 2nd – 5th December, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, pp 312 – 315.

Kiral-Kornek, I., Savage, C.O., and Grayden, D.B. (2011). “The focus of attention under phosphenated vision through retinal implants” 7th International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Processing (ISSNIP), 6th – 9th December, Adelaide, Australia, pp 113 – 118.

Kiral-Kornek, I., Savage, C.O., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. (2012). “Feature accentuation in Phosphenated images” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 5915 – 5918.

Koushaeian, L., Muktamath, V., Ghafari, B., Goodarzy, F., Evans, R., and Skafidas, E. (2011). “Design of low-power bandgap reference voltage circuit for epi-retinal prosthesis” 6th International Conference on Broadband and Biomedical Communications (IB2Com), 21st – 24th November, Melbourne, Australia, pp 236 – 239.

Lehmann, T., Chun, H., Preston, P. and Suaning, G. (2010).

“Current-limited Passive Charge Recovery for Implantable Neurostimulators: Power Savings,

Li, H., Shen, C., and Shi, Q. (2011).

“Real-time visual tracking using compressive sensing” IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 20th – 25th June, Colorado Spring, USA, pp 1305 – 1312.

Li, Y., McCarthy, C.D., and Barnes, N. (2012). “On just noticeable difference for bionic eye” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 2961 – 2964.

Lieby, P., Barnes, N., McCarthy, C.D., Liu, N., Dennett, H., Walker, J.G., Botea, V., and Scott, A.F. (2011). “Substituting depth for intensity and real-time phosphene rendering: Visual navigation under low vision conditions.” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 8017 – 8020.

Matteucci, P.B., Byrnes-Preston, P.J., Chen, S.C., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2011). “ARM-based visual processing system for prosthetic vision” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 3921 – 3924.

Matteucci, P.B., Chen, S.C., Dodds,

C.W.D., Dokos, S., Morley, J.W., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2012). “Threshold analysis of quasi-monopolar stimulation strategy in vision prosthetics” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 2997 – 3000.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 2583 – 2586.

Maturana, M.I., Grayden, D.B., Burkitt, A.N., Meffin, H. and Kameneva, T. (2013). “Multicompartment 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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 69 – 72.

McCarthy, C. D., and Barnes, N. (2012). “Time-to-contact maps for navigation with a low resolution visual prosthesis” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 2780 – 2783.

McCarthy, C., and Barnes, N. (2014). “Importance weighted image enhancement for prosthetic vision: An augmentation framework” International Symposium of Mixed and Augmented Reality 2014, 10th – 12th September, Munich, Germany, pp 45 – 51.

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), 15th – 19th July, San Jose, USA, pp 1 – 6.

McCarthy, C.D., Barnes, N., and Lieby, P. (2011). “Ground surface segmentation for navigation with a low resolution visual prosthesis” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 4457 – 4460.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 5946 – 5949.

Meng, F., Yang, J., Tran, N. , Bai, S., Ng, D.C., Halpern, M.E., Skafidas, E., and Mareels, I. (2010). “A GFSK demodulator for ultra-low power MICS band Receiver” 5th International Conference on Broadband and Biomedical Communications (IB2Com), 15th – 17th December, Malaga, Spain, 4 pages.

Ming, Y., Li, H., and He, X. (2012).

“Connected contours: a new contour completion model that respects closure-effect” IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 18th – 20th June, Rhode Island, USA, pp 829 – 836.

Moghadam, G.K., Wilke, R.G.H., Dokos, S., Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2011). “Electrode design to optimize ganglion cell activation in a retinal neuroprosthesis: A modeling study.” 5th International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 73

Engineering (NER), 27th April – 1st May, Cancun, Mexico, pp 542 – 545.

Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 8356 – 8360.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 3250 – 3253.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 2760 – 2763.

Ng, D.C., and Skafidas, E. (2014).

“Analysis of power dissipation and temperature rise of an inductive link for retinal implants” International Symposium of Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), 12th – 16th May, Tokyo, Japan, pp 434 – 437.

Park, K., Shen, C., Hao, Z., and Kim, J. (2011). “Efficiently learning a distance metric for large margin nearest neighbour classification” 25th Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 7th – 12th August, San Francisco, USA, pp 453 – 458.

Ng, D.C., Bai, S., Boyd, C.S., Tran, N., Yang, J., Halpern, M.E., and Skafidas, E. (2010). “High efficiency double-paired inductive coils for wireless powering of a retinal prosthesis” 7th IASTED International Conference on Biomedical Engineering (BioMed), 17th – 19th February, Innsbruck, Austria, pp 106 – 110.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 759 – 762.

Ng, D.C., Boyd, C.S., Bai, S., Felic, G.K., Halpern, M.E., and Skafidas, E. (2010). “High-Q flexible spiral inductive coils” Electromagnetic Compatibility Symposium Melbourne (EMC Melbourne), 8th – 10th September, Melbourne, Australia, 4 pages.

Ng, D.C., Wang, X., Felic, G.K., Bai, S., Boyd, C.S., Halpern, M.E., and Skafidas, E. (2011). “Specific absorption rate distribution on a human head model from inductive power coils” EMC Europe 2011 York, 26th – 30th September, York, UK, pp 79 – 83.

Ng, D.C., Williams, C.E., Allen, P.J., Bai, S., Boyd, C.S., Meffin, H., Halpern, M.E., and Skafidas, E. (2011). “Wireless power delivery for retinal prostheses” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and 74 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Perera, S., and Barnes, N. (2011).

“A Simple and Practical Solution to the Rigid Body Motion Segmentation Problem using a RGB-D Camera” International Conference on Digital Image Computing Techniques and Applications (DICTA), 6th – 8th December, Queensland, Australia, pp 494 – 500.

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), 26th – 28th December, Hobart, Australia, pp 1 – 8.

Savage, C.O. (2011). “Eye position prediction in the case

of nystagmus and refixations” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 7924 – 7927.

Shen, C., Kim, J., and Wang, L. (2011). “A scalable dual approach to semidefinite metric learning” IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 20th – 25th June, Colorado, USA, pp 2601 – 2608.

Savage, C.O., and Halpern, M.E. (2011). “Phosphene brightness modelling for voltage driven waveforms” 7th International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks, and Information Processing (ISSNIP), 6th – 9th December, Adelaide, Australia, pp 103 – 107.

Stacey, A., Yi, L., and Barnes, N. (2011). “A salient information processing system for bionic eye with application to obstacle avoidance” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 5116 – 5119.

Savage, C.O., Grayden, D.B., Meffin, H., and Burkitt, A.N. (2011).

“Predicting phosphene elicitation in patients with retinal implants: A mathematical study.” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 6246 – 6249.

Savage, C.O., Kameneva, T., Grayden, D.B., Meffin, H., and Burkitt, A.N. (2012). “Minimisation of required charge for desired neuronal spike rate” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 3009 – 3012.

Savage, C.O., Kiral-Kornek, I., Tahayori, B., and Grayden, D.B. (2012). “Can electric crosstalk be used to control perception of a retinal prosthesis patient?” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, CA, USA, pp 3013 – 3016.

Shen, C., and Hao, Z. (2011). “A direct formulation for totallycorrective multi-class boosting” IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 20th – 25th June, Colorado, USA, pp 2585 – 2592.

Stieglitz, T., Huang, W., Chen, S.C., Morley, J.W., Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2010). “A transparent electrode array for simultaneous cortical potential recording and intrinsic signal optical imaging” 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 31st August – 4th September, Buenos Aires, Argentine, pp 1796 – 1799.

Suaning, G.J., Kisban, S., Chen, S.C., Byrnes-Preston, P.J., Dodds, C.W.D., Tsai, D., Matteucci, P.B., Herwik, S., Morley, J.W., Lovell, N.H., Paul, O., Stieglitz, T., and Ruther, P. (2010). “Discrete cortical responses from multi-site suprachoroidal electrical stimulation in the feline retina” 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 31st August – 4th September, Buenos Aires, Argentine, pp 5879 – 5882.

Suaning, G.J., Lovell, N.H., and Lehmann, T. (2014).

“Neuromodulation of the retina from the suprachoroidal space: The Phoenix 99 implant.” 22nd – 24th October, Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS) 2014, Lausanne, Switzerland, pp 256 – 259.

Tahayori, B., and Dokos, S. (2012). “Optimal stimulus current waveshape for a Hodgkin-Huxley model neuron” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, CA, USA, pp 4627 – 4630.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 5978 – 5981.

Tahayori, B., Meffin, H., Venables, N., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. (2011). “Theoretical framework for estimating the conductivity map of the retina through finite element analysis” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 6721 – 6724.

Tran, N., Bai, S., Yang, J., Chun, H., Kavehei, O., Yang, Y., Muktamath, V., Ng, D., Meffin, H., Halpern, M., and Skafidas, S. (2013). “A Complete and Highly Flexible 256-Electrode Retinal Prosthesis Chip” 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, 1 page.

Tran, N., Halpern, M.E., Bai, S., and Skafidas, E. (2012). “Crosstalk Current Measurements using Multi-Electrode Arrays in Saline” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 3021 – 3024.

Tran, N., Skafidas, E., Yang, J., Bai, S., Meng, F., Ng, D.C.,

Halpern, M.E., and Mareels, I. (2011). “A prototype 64-electrode stimulator in 65 nm CMOS process towards a high density epi-retinal prosthesis” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 6729 – 6732.

Tran, N., Yang, J., Bai, S., Skafidas, E., Mareels, I., Ng, D.C., and Halpern, M.E. (2010). “A Flexible Electrode Driver using 65 nm CMOS Process for 1024-Electrode Epi-Retinal Prosthesis” 5th International Conference on Future Information Technology (FutureTech), 20th – 24th May, Busan, Korea, 5 pages.

Tsai, D., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2011).

“Responses of starburst amacrine cells to prosthetic stimulation of the retina” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 1053 – 1056.

Tsai, D., Morley, J.W., Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2011).

“Sodium channel inactivation reduces retinal ganglion cell responsiveness to repetitive prosthetic stimulation” 5th International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering (NER), 27th April – 1st May, Mexico, pp 550 – 553.

Venables, N., Tahayori, B., Meffin, H., Grayden, D.B., and Burkitt, A.N. (2012). “Determining the electrical impedance of the retina from a complex voltage map” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, US, pp 3005 – 3008.

Wang, F., and Li, Y. (2012). “Robust Kernel Estimation for Single Image Blind Deconvolution”

21st International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR), 11th – 15th November, Tsukuba, Japan, pp 481 – 484.

IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 26th – 30th August, Chicago, USA, pp 1707 – 1710.

Wang, S., Li, Y., and Barnes, N. (2012). “Text image processing for visual prostheses” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, USA, pp 2977 – 2980.

Xie, Y., Liu, N., and Barnes, N. (2012). “Phosphene vision of depth and boundary from segmentationbased associative MRFs” 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 28th August – 1st September, San Diego, CA, USA, pp 5314 – 5318.

Wang, T., He, X., and Barnes, N. (2012). “Glass object localization by joint Inference of boundary and depth” 21st International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR), 11th – 15th November, Tsukuba, Japan, 4 pages.

Wang, T., He, X., and Barnes, N. (2012). “Learning Hough forest with depth-encoded context for object detection” International Conference on Digital Image Computing Techniques and Applications (DICTA), 3rd – 5th December, Freemantle, WA, Australia, pp 1 – 8.

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), 15th – 18th September, Melbourne, Australia, pp 2944 – 2948.

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), 23rd – 28th June, Oregon, USA, pp 1790 – 1797.

Wong, R.C.S., Garrett, D.J., Grayden, D.B., Ibbotson, M.R., and Cloherty, S.L. (2014). “Efficacy of Electrical Stimulation of Retinal Ganglion Cells with Temporal Patterns Resembling LightEvoked Spike Trains” 36th Annual International Conference of the

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), 31st October – 2nd November, Rotterdam, Netherlands, pp 202 – 205.

Yang, J., Meng, F., Skafidas, E., Tran, N., Bai, S., Mareels, I., Ng, D.C., and Halpern, M.E. (2010). “A super low power MICS band receiver front-end down converter on 65 nm CMOS” 3rd International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Informatics (BMEI), 16th – 18th October, Yantai, China, pp 1412 – 1415.

Yang, J., Tran, N., Bai, S., Meng, F., Skafidas, E., Halpern, M.E., Ng, D.C., and Mareels, I. (2011). “A subthreshold down converter optimized for super-low-power applications in MICS Band” IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS), 10th – 12th November, pp 189 – 192.

Yang, J., Tran, N., Bai, S., Meng, F., Skafidas, E., Mareels, I., and Halpern, M.E. (2010). “An ultra-low power, wide input range MICS band channel selection filter on 65 nm CMOS” IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS), 3rd – 5th November, pp 218 – 221.

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 75

Yin, S., Lovell, N.H., Suaning, G.J., and Dokos, S. (2010). “A continuum model of the retinal network and its response to electrical stimulation” 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 31st August – 4th September, Buenos Aires, Argentine, pp 2077 – 2080.

Yin, S., Lovell, N.H., Suaning, G.J., and Dokos, S. (2011). “Continuum model of light response in the retina” 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA, pp 908 – 911.

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), 3rd – 7th July, Osaka, Japan, pp 3690 – 3693.

Zapf, M.P.H., Matteucci, P.B., Lovell, N.H., Zheng, S., and Suaning, G. (2014). “Towards Photorealistic and Immersive Virtual-Reality Environments for Simulated Prosthetic Vision: Integrating Recent Breakthroughs in Consumer Hardware and Software.” 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 26th – 30th August, Chicago, US, pp 2597 – 2600.

Invited presentations Ahnood, A. (2013).

“Ultrananocrystalline diamondCMOS device integration route for high acuity retinal prostheses” Invited presentation at the 4th Asia-Pacific Symposium on NanoBionics, 14th – 15th November, Melbourne, Australia.

76 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Allen, P.J., McCombe, M.F., Yeoh, J., Luu, C.D., Villalobos, J., Shivdasani, M., Nayagam, D., Lovell, N.H, Suaning, G.J, Williams, C., Shepherd, R., Guymer, R.H. (2011). “To develop a cat model for chronic active stimulation with a wide-field suprachoroidal array to aid in the development of a human low resolution device” Invited presentation at the Retina Society 44th Annual Scientific Meeting, 21st – 25th September, Rome, Italy.

Ayton, L.N. (2012). “The Six Million Dollar Man? The present and future of Bionic Eyes” Invited talk at the Orthoptics Australia Congress, July.

Ayton, L.N. (2012). “Update on the Bionic Eye Project” Invited talk at the Retina Australia National Congress, 1st October, Sydney, Australia.

Ayton, L.N. (2012). “Update on the Bionic Vision Australia Project” Invited talk at the Australian College of Optometry Annual Conference, October, Melbourne.

Ayton, L.N. (2013). “Seeing into The Future: Australia’s First Bionic Eye.” Invited presentation at the Western Australia Vision Education (WAVE) Conference, 10th – 13th August, Perth, Australia.

Ayton, L.N. (2013). “The Six Million Dollar Man: Present and Future Bionic Eyes.” Invited presentation at the Blue Sky Conference (Optometrists Association SA), 15th – 17th November, Adelaide, Australia.

Ayton, L.N. (2014). “The Future of Vision Restoration: Aspirations, Expectations and Challenges” Invited plenary at the International Low Vision Conference (Vision 2014), 31st March – 3rd April, Melbourne, Australia.

Ayton, L.N., and Luu, C.D. (2012).

“Advanced Retinal Dystrophies: What to do when ERG is

undetectable” Invited talk at the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) Electrophysiology Congress, 16th September, Singapore.

Australian Ophthalmic and Vision Sciences Meeting (AOVSM), 26th – 28th November, Melbourne, Australia.

Ayton, L.N., and Rizzo J.F. (2014).

“An Update on the International Task Force for Consensus on Psychophysical Testing Methods in Vision Restoration” Invited talk at The Eye and The Chip 2014, 28th – 30th September, Detriot, USA.

Blamey, P.J. (2013).

“Psychophysical and vision processing results with a prototype suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis” Invited presentation at the 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, 17th – 20th November, Phillip Island, Australia.

Ayton, L.N., and Rizzo, J. (2012).

“Colloborative proposal to guide and monitor human psychophysical testing for visual prosthetic device” Invited presentation at The Eye and The Chip, World Congress on Artificial Vision, 9th – 11th September, Detroit, USA.

Blamey, P.J. (2014).

“Psychophysical and vision processing results with a prototype suprachorodial retinal prosthesis” Invited presentation at the CVS Symposium on Vision Restoration, 22nd – 24th August, Rochester, US.

Barnes, N. (2012). “Computer Vision for Prosthetic Vision” Invited presentation at the 27th Image and Vision Computing New Zealand (IVCNZ), 26th – 28th November, New Zealand.

Burkitt, A.N. (2012). “20/20 Vision in 2020: The Development of the Bionic Eye” Invited talk at the MedTech Conference (MTAA 2012), 8th November, Sydney, Australia.

Barnes, N. (2013). “An overview of vision processing approaches in implantable prosthetic vision” Invited talk at the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), 15th – 18th September, Melbourne, Australia.

Burkitt, A.N. (2012). “Retinal implant development for the sight impaired” Keynote talk at the 7th World Congress for NeuroRehabilitation, 16th – 19th May, Melbourne, Australia.

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

Barnes, N. (2014). “Bionic eye: A dream of reality.” Invited presentation at the H20 International Health Summit, 13th – 14th November, Melbourne, Australia.

Bentley, S.A., and Ayton, L.N. (2012). “Orientation and Mobility Rehabilitation: Canes, Canines and Bionic Eyes” Invited talk at the

Burkitt, A.N. (2012). “The Bionic Vision Australia ‘High-Acuity’ Retinal Implant” Invited talk at The Eye and The Chip, World Congress on Artificial Vision, 9th – 11th September, Detroit, USA. Burkitt, A.N. (2013). “The quest to restore vision for the blind with medical bionics: The Bionic Vision Australia research program.”

Invited presentation at the 6th Asia & Oceania Conference on Photobiology (ACOP), 10th – 13th November, Sydney, Australia.

Burkitt, A.N. (2014). “Bionic Vision Australia Prototype Suprachoroidal Wide-View Retinal Implant Study” Invited presentation at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Australian

Neuroscience Society (ANS), 28th – 31st January, Adelaide, Australia.

Retina Australia National Congress, 1st October, Sydney, Australia.

Burkitt, A.N. (2014). “Medical bionics and the restoration of vision to people with profound vision impairment: The Bionic Vision Australia research program.”

Invited presentation at the ARCS Scientific Congress 2014, 4th June, Sydney, Australia.

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

Burkitt, A.N. (2014). “The Bionic Vision Australia Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis: Results Update from the First-in-Human Trial” Invited presentation at The Eye and The Chip 2014, 28th – 30th September, Detroit, MI, USA. Deverell, L., Ayton, L.N., and Bentley, S.A. (2012). “What is effective mobility? Defining orientation and mobility in vision restoration trials” Invited workshop at the International Mobility Conference (IMC14), 13th – 17th February, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

Dokos, S. (2012). “Computational Modeling of the Retina Response to Electrical Stimulation” Invited talk at the Auckland Retinal Modeling Initiative Workshop, 2nd February, Auckland, NZ. Fletcher, E. (2011). “Inner retinal modelling following photoreceptor death: Problem or epiphenomenon?” Invited presentation at the Australian College of Optometry Annual Conference, 22nd October.

Fletcher, E. (2011). Invited presentation at the Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology Congress, 20th – 24th March, Sydney, Australia.

Fletcher, E.L. (2012). “Inherited retinal disease” Invited talk at the Southern Regional Congress (SRC), 1st – 3rd June, Melbourne, Australia.

Fletcher, E.L. (2012). “Slowing photoreceptor death in retinal degenerations” Invited talk at the

Fox, K., Garrett, D.J., Ganesan, K., Meffin, H., Prawer, S. (2011). “The Bionic Eye: Adventures towards an all-diamond multi-electrode array.” Invited presentation at the BITs 2nd Annual World Congress of Nanomedicine, 2nd – 5th November, Shenzhen, China.

Garrett, D.J. (2011). Invited talk at MacDiarmid Student and Post Doc Symposium, 18th – 19th November, Wellington, New Zealand.

Garrett, D.J. (2012). “A sparkle in the eye: A high acuity retinal prosthesis for the blind fabricated from diamond” Invited talk at the De Beers Diamond Conference, 9th – 12th July, Birmingham, UK. Green R.A., Goding, J., Baek, S., Lovell, N.H., Martens P.J., and Poole-Warren, L.A. (2010).

“Engineering neural interfaces with bioactive conductive polymers” Invited presentation at the 10th New Jersey Symposium on Biomaterials Science, 27th – 28th October, New Brunswick, USA. Guymer, R.H. “The challenge and promise of the bionic eye” Invited presentation at AsiaAnnual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, 20th – 23rd January, Singapore.

Guymer, R.H. (2010). “Seeing is believing: the challenge and promise of the Bionic Eye.” Invited presentation at the 2010 Gerald Crock Lecture, 3rd June, Melbourne, Australia.

Guymer, R.H. (2011). “Electronic restoration of vision” Invited

presentation at the Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology Congress, 20th – 24th March, Sydney, Australia.

Guymer, R.H. (2012). “$42 Million Bionic Eye” Invited talk at Distinctive Voices, 25th January, Beckman Centre, Irvine, California.

Guymer, R.H. (2012). “Expertise in Bionic Eye” Invited talk at the Stem Cells Australia Ausbiotech National Conference, November, Melbourne, Australia.

Guymer, R.H. (2012). “Update on Bionic Vision Australia” Invited talk at the Australian Ophthalmic and Vision Sciences Meeting (AOVSM), 26th – 28th November, Melbourne, Australia.

Guymer, R.H. (2014). “Bionic Vision Australia: Recent Advances and Future Aspirations” Invited plenary at the International Low Vision Conference (Vision 2014), 31st March – 3rd April, Melbourne, Australia.

Ibbotson, M. (2011). “Developing a Bionic Eye in Australia” Invited presentation at the Australian Vision Conference, 29th April – 1st May, Gold Coast, Australia.

Ibbotson, M.R. (2011). “In vivo and in vitro measurements of the efficacy of bionic eye implants” Invited presentation at AsiaAnnual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, 20th – 23rd January, Singapore.

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

Ibbotson, M.R. (2014).

“Understanding how the visual brain process information for perception and behaviour” Invited presentation at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Australian

Neuroscience Society (ANS), 28th – 31st January, Adelaide, Australia.

Lichter, S. (2011). “The Australian Bionic Eye: A Vision for the Future.”

Invited presentation at the 20th Annual AHRDMA Annual Scientific Meeting, 17th – 18th March, Canberra, Australia.

Lovell, N.H. (2010). “Australian medical device developments: From telehealth technologies to bionic eyes” Invited keynote at the Engineering and Physical Sciences in Medicine and the Australian Biomedical Engineering Conference (EPSM-ABEC), 5th – 9th December, Melbourne, Australia.

Lovell, N.H. (2010). “Medical device technologies for improving quality of life” Invited keynote at the IEEE EMBS Conference on Biomedical Engineering & Sciences (IECBES 2010), 30th November – 2nd December, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Lovell, N.H. (2010). “Medical device technologies for managing chronic disease and providing therapies for blindness” Invited presentation at the ECTI-CON 2010, 19th – 21st May, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Lovell, N.H. (2010).

“Nanotechnology and microtechnology in the design of a visual prosthesis” Invited presentation at the 2nd Asia-Pacific Symposium on Nanobionics, 9th – 11th June, Wollongong, Australia.

Lovell, N.H. (2010). “Technological aspects of ageing in place” Invited keynote at the launch of Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) launch of a report Smart Technology for Healthy Longevity – with the Hon Kim Carr, Minister for DIISR, 22nd July, Melbourne, Australia.

Lovell, N.H. (2010). “The role of biomathematical modelling Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 77

and neuroscience in the design of a visual neuroprosthesis” Invited presentation at the ACAN Workshop, 17th April, Stradbroke Island, Australia.

Device Technologies for Managing Disease and Wellness” Invited talk at the 9th Australia-China Symposium: “On Healthy Aging”, 1st – 5th June, Canberra, Australia.

Invited presentation at the IEEE EMBS Special Topic Conference on Point-Of-Care (POC) Healthcare Technologies, 15th – 17th January, Bangalore, India.

Luu, C. (2010). “Bionic Eye Research Updates” Invited presentation at the Tasmania’s Lifestyle Congress VI, 27th – 29th August, Tasmania, Australia.

Lovell, N.H. (2011). “Biosignal processing and bioelectronics for wearable and implantable medical devices” Invited presentation at the International Symposium on Bioelectronics and Bioinformatics, 3rd – 5th November, Suzhou, China.

Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Medical device technologies for managing disease and wellness” Opening plenary talk at eHealth2012, 10th – 12th May, Vienna, Austria.

Lovell, N.H., and Bonato, P. (2012).

“Wearable Technology and its Applications in Rehabilitation” Invited pre-conference workshop at the XIXth Congress of the International Society of Electrophysiology and Kinesiology (ISEK), 18th July, Brisbane, Australia.

Luu, C.D. (2012). “Development of a rapid Feline model of outer retinal degeneration” Oral presentation at The Eye and The Chip, World Congress on Artificial Vision, 9th – 11th September, Detroit, USA.

Lovell, N.H. (2011). “From falls prevention to vision restoration: Medical device technologies for improving quality of life.”

Invited presentation at the 10th International Workshop on Biomedical Engineering, 5th – 7th October, Kos-Helona, Greece.

Lovell, N.H. (2011). “How Medical Device Technologies are Supporting Aging in Place” Invited presentation at the Festival of International Conferences on Caregiving, Disability, Aging and Technology including Rehabilitation Society of North America, 5th – 8th June, Toronto, Canada.

Lovell, N.H. (2011). “Technologies for ageing-in-place: From implantable bionics to biomonitoring.” Invited presentation at the 8th IASTED International Conference on Biomedical Engineering, 16th – 18th February, Innsbruck, Austria.

Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Bionic vision and retinal modeling” Invited talk at the Auckland Retinal Modeling Initiative Workshop, 2nd February, Auckland, NZ. Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Innovation in medical bionics” Invited talk at the NSW Health Innovation Symposium, 19th October, Sydney.

Australia.

Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Medical 78 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Medical device technologies for managing disease and wellness: Pitfalls of translational research.” Invited presentation at the IEEE EMBS Conference on Biomedical Engineering & Sciences (IECBES), 17th – 19th December, Langkawi, Malaysia.

Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Medical device technologies for supporting sensory loss and promoting ageing in place” Invited plenary talk at the International Conference on NeuroRehabilitation (ICNR), 15th – 17th November, Toledo, Spain.

Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Retinal stimulation challenge: How to increase spatial and temporal resolution?” Invited presentation at the 4th International Conference on Neural Prosthetic Devices (ICNPD), 1st November, Freiburg, Germany.

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

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

Lovell, N.H. (2013). “Point-ofcare technologies for managing health: Issues associated with unsupervised measurements.”

Lovell, N.H., and Redmond, S.J. (2014). “Engineering the convergence of telehealth and telecare” Invited presentation at uHealthcare 2014, 20th – 22nd November, Gwangju, Korea.

Meffin, H. (2010). “The Bionic Eye for Restoring Sight in Degenerative Retinal Diseases” Invited presentation at the Taiwan Australia Workshop on Bilateral Cooperation in Gerontechnology, 24th – 29th October, Taipei, Taiwan.

Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2012). “A retinal prosthesis Implanted in the Suprachoroidal Space” Invited talk at the Advance in Visual Prosthesis Workshop, 15th May, Barcelona, Spain.

Meffin, H. (2012). “Restoring vision with Retinal Prostheses” Invited talk at the Engineering & Physical Sciences in Medicine Conference (EPSM), 4th December, Gold Coast, Australia.

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

Morley, J.W. (2013). “Developing a bionic eye” Invited presentation at the Annual Brain Sciences UNSW Symposium, 18th October, Sydney, Australia.

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

Lovell, N.H., and Suaning, G.J. (2014). “A suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis: Can novel stimulation paradigms improve performance?

Plenary presentation at IEEE Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, 8th – 10th December, Miri, Malaysia.

Petoe, M.A., and McCarthy, C.D. (2014). “Scrambling vision processing for comparative performance measures” Invited presentation at The Eye and The Chip 2014, 28th – 30th September, Detriot, USA. Prawer, S. (2011). “Best friend for the blind: The Bionic Eye project.”

Invited presentation at the XXth International Materials Research Congress, 14th – 19th August, Cancun, Mexico.

Prawer, S. (2013). “High Density Conductive Diamond Electrodes: Applications in Medical Bionics.”

Invited presentation at the 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, 17th – 20th November, Phillip Island, Australia.

Prawer, S. (2013). “Seeing with diamonds: From quantum sensing to bionic eyes.” Invited presentation at the 29th Annual Meeting of Frontiers in Optics APS/ DLS Orlando, 6th – 10th October, Florida, USA.

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

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

Shepherd, R.K. (2013). “Research and Clinical Applications of Medical Bionics” Invited talk at DARPA Neural Interfaces Symposium, 20th – 21st May, Melbourne, Australia.

Prawer, S. (2014). “Using diamonds in bionic eyes” Invited plenary at the 23rd Conference of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering (ASBTE), 22nd – 24th April, Lorne, Australia.

Shepherd, R.K. (2012). “Becoming a world leader in neural prosthesis: The Australian path to success” Invited talk at the USTAR Neural Interface Translation and Commercialisation Workshop, 17th June, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Shepherd, R.K. (2012). “Building a bionic eye” Invited talk at the AusMedTech Conference, 15th May, Sydney, Australia.

Shepherd, R.K. (2012). “Building a bionic eye” Invited talk at the TEDx – University of Wollongong, 29th May, Wollongong, Sydney, Australia.

Shepherd, R.K. (2012). “Innovation in medicine: medical bionics as a case study” Invited talk at the NSW Health Innovation Symposium, 19th October, Sydney, Australia.

Shepherd, R.K. (2012). “Medical bionics: An Australian perspective” Invited talk at the 9th AustraliaChina Symposium: “On Healthy Aging”, 22nd – 24th July, Canberra, Australia.

Shepherd, R.K. (2012). “Sensory prostheses: Practical applications in neuroscience” Invited talk at UWS Sensory Neuroscience Symposium, 10th December, Sydney, Australia.

Shepherd, R.K. (2013). “Visual prostheses: A progress report to the CIAP community.” Invited presentation at the Conference on Implantable Auditory Prostheses (CIAP), 14th – 19th July, California, USA. Shepherd, R.K. (2014). “Progress in the development of a retinal prosthesis” Invited presentation at the 23rd Conference of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering (ASBTE), 22nd – 24th April, Lorne, Australia.

Suaning G, J. (2011). “Significant advances in retinal degenerative diseases” Invited presentation at the Cátedra de Investigación en Retinosis Pigmentosa Bidons Egara, September, Elche, Spain.

Suaning G. (2011). “Visual Prosthesis – An engineer’s perspective” Invited presentation at the 2nd International Conference on Medical Bionics, 20th – 23rd November, Phillip Island, Australia.

Suaning, G. (2011). Invited presentation at the IDA Congress on Biotechnology, 24th – 26th October, Taipei, Taiwan.

Suaning, G., and Lovell, N.H. (2014). “The Phoenix 99 Suprachoroidal Retinal Prosthesis: Research and Development Update.” Invited presentation at The Eye and The Chip 2014, 28th – 30th September, Detriot, USA.

Suaning, G.J. (2010).

“Suprachoroidal Electrical Stimulation of the Retina” Invited presentation at the Asia Pacific Conference on Vision, 23rd – 26th July, Taipei, Taiwan.

Invited presentation at the 11th Annual World Congress of Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics, 17th – 19th March, Sydney, Australia.

Suaning, G.J. (2010).

“Suprachoroidal Electrical Stimulation of the Retina – Implications for Visual Prostheses” Invited presentation at the International Conference on Neural Prosthetic Devices, 27th – 28th February, Beijing, China.

Suaning, G.J. (2014). “Treating blindness through visual neuroprostheses: Circuits and system architectures inspired by the target biology” Invited presentation at Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS), 22nd – 24th October, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Suaning, G.J. (2011). “The suprachoroidal space: the place to be for retinal prosthesis?” Invited presentation at the 33rd IEEE Conference on Engineering in Medicine and Biology, 30th August – 3rd September, Boston, USA.

Suaning, G.J. and Lovell, N.H. (2010). “Suprachoroidal Visual Prosthesis – Progress towards Clinical Trials” Invited presentation at the Eye and the Chip – World Congress on Artificial Vision, 13th – 15th September, Michigan, USA.

Suaning, G.J. (2012). “Hermeticity Discussion Panel” Chair the 4th International Conference on Neural Prosthetic Devices (ICNPD), 1st November, Freiburg, Germany.

Suaning, G.J., and Lovell, N.H. (2012). “Supra-choroidal visual prosthesis” Invited talk at The Eye and The Chip, World Congress on Artificial Vision, 9th – 11th September, Detroit, USA.

Suaning, G.J. (2013).

“Fundamentals of a neural prosthesis: An Engineer’s perspective” Invited presentation at the 3rd International Conference on Medical Bionics, 17th – 20th November, Phillip Island, Australia.

Vessey, K.A. (2012). Invited talk at the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS) Satellite Symposium, 3rd February, Gold Coast, Australia.

Suaning, G.J. (2013). “Humanmachine interfaces - restoring sensory and motor function through neuroprosthesis” Invited presentation at the 4th Asia-Pacific Symposium on NanoBionics, 14th – 15th November, Melbourne, Australia.

Suaning, G.J. (2013). “Technology for Stimulation of the Visual System - from Electrodes to Systems.” Invited presentation at the International Symposium on Visual Prosthetics, Artificial Vision 2013, 8th – 9th November, Aachen, Germany.

Suaning, G.J. (2014). “Electrode arrays and Cochlear implants” Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 79

An initiative of

Our members

Our partners

Š Copyright 2015 University of Melbourne as BVA Administering Organisation.

Illustration and photography credits: Photograph of 24-channel Wide-View prototype on page 23 by Dr David Nayagam.

Medical illustration on page 17 by Beth Croce. Corporate photography throughout by Gavin Blue, Peter Casamento, Andrew Harris, MedPic, David Mirabella, Joe Vittorio, Paul Wright. Other photographs and images courtesy of BVA member and partner organisations.

Publication produced by Clare Chandler and designed by SCDesign.

80 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015

Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015 83

84 Bionic Vision Australia 2010-2015