Eyeing the Future: Gold Nanoparticles Offer Vision Shielding

casualSTEM delivers brief and informative summaries of the latest science news every Saturday. Full of jokes, silly polls, and a cartoon!

Gold-in Eye

Injecting gold into your eye could protect your vision. Researchers are developing a nanoparticle to shield light-induced damage.

• Act as micro-filters to shield photoreceptor cells

• Compatible w/ eye tissue thanks to silica coating

• Reduced light exposure-vision loss in mice

Stabbing your eye with gold may seem drastic, but researchers compare the procedure to gene therapies which can be harder to scale. Before you update your ID to reflect your new “gold” eye color, human trials are not yet in sight.

See what eye did there???

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