A multidisciplinary team is developing a nano-size battery that one day could be implanted in the eye to power an artificial retina. The project is just one to be undertaken at the new National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors to be based at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The center will design, model, synthesize, and fabricate nanomedical devices based on natural and synthetic ion transporters - proteins that control ion motion across the membranes of every living cell.

The first task for the center will be to design a class of devices for generating Electric power - bio-batteries - for a wide array of implantable devices, starting with an artificial retina that has already been developed at the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California. The artificial retina and accompanying nanobattery will be used to correct certain types of macular degeneration. (photo Sandia National Laboraatories)