Researchers have developed contact lens technology to help diagnose and monitor medical conditions. The team enabled commercial soft contact lenses to be a bioinstrumentation tool for unobtrusive monitoring of clinically important information associated with underlying ocular health conditions. This technology enables the painless diagnosis or early detection of many ocular diseases including glaucoma.

The new contact lens technology can help diagnose and monitor medical conditions. (Photo: Pete Kollbaum)

Sensors or other electronics previously couldn’t be used for commercial soft contact lenses because the fabrication technology required a rigid, planar surface incompatible with the soft, curved shape of a contact lens.

The new technology seamlessly integrates ultrathin, stretchable biosensors with commercial soft contact lenses via wet adhesive bonding. The biosensors embedded on the soft contact lenses record electrophysiological retinal activity from the corneal surface of human eyes without the need of topical anesthesia that has been required in current clinical settings for pain management and safety.

The technology will allow doctors and scientists to better understand spontaneous retinal activity with significantly improved accuracy, reliability, and user comfort.

For more information, contact Chi Hwan Lee, Asst. Professor, Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..