HOPES is the first entry from Singapore to win the international top prize in the 17 years’ history of the James Dyson Award.
* This story was first published on Haleness Me.
HOPES, (which stands for Home eye Pressure E-skin Sensor) is a wearable biomedical device for pain-free, low cost, at-home IOP testing.
HOPES is a wearable biomedical device for pain-free, low cost, at-home intra-ocular pressure (IOP) testing.
James Dyson Award
The James Dyson Award, organised by Dyson’s Charity – the James Dyson Foundation, aims to nurture and inspire a new generation of design engineers and inventors.
This year’s International winner of the James Dyson Award was inspired by one of the inventors’, Kelu, father’s diagnosis of glaucoma.
The Problem
After witnessing his discomfort and multiple hospital visits, she realised there is a global need for a less invasive and more accessible method for Intraocular Pressure (IOP) monitoring.
Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide.
In 2020, about 80 million people have glaucoma worldwide, and this is expected to rise to over 111 million by 2040.
“I’ve experienced first-hand how invasive and unpleasant the tests for glaucoma can be, but it is a vital test. This group of young people have tackled a problem that doesn’t affect them directly, but which affects members of their family. Their work has the potential to make glaucoma testing much more widely available and I wish them every success as they navigate the challenging process of further development and medical approvals,” said Sir James Dyson, Founder & Chief Engineer at Dyson.
In Singapore, approximately three percent of people over the age of 50 have glaucoma.
This percentage increases with age and reaches almost 10 per cent for those over the age of 70.
Because it is largely symptom-free, it’s also known as the “silent thief of sight”.
There is no cure but, if diagnosed and treated early, blindness can be prevented.
Today, regular IOP monitoring is a critical tool in helping clinicians determine long-term treatment plans and goals.
This is achieved through the Goldmann Applanation Tonometry – regarded as the gold standard for the measurement of IOP.
There is a demand for safe, accurate, low-cost, at-home IOP measurement devices to better improve the patient experience.
The Solution
Powered by patent pending sensor technology and artificial intelligence, HOPES is a convenient device for users to frequently self-monitor IOP.
The inventors behind HOPES are Yu Kelu, Li Si and David Lee from the National University of Singapore. They will receive S$53,000 in prize money to help further the development of their invention, while their university will receive S$8,800 in recognition of their win.
After creating a profile in the App, the user wears the HOPES glove with the sensor placed at the fingertip, pressing this against the centre of the eyelid.
“We were thrilled to hear from Sir James Dyson that we are this year’s International winners of the James Dyson Award. For us this all started with Kelu and her attempt to create a solution for her father after the problem they faced as a family. With this win, we hope in the future people can measure their eye pressure in a pain-free, at-home environment. We want to improve people’s quality of life and aspire to one day apply our research group’s sensor technology across different health monitoring applications, such as robotics and biomedical devices,” said the HOPES team.
The fingertip employs a unique sensor architecture that captures dynamic pressure information of the user’s eye with sub-millisecond precision.
The captured signals are processed by machine learning algorithms to continuously and accurately compute users’ IOP.
Data is transmitted via Bluetooth to paired devices or uploaded to the Cloud to be accessed remotely by clinicians.
The App prompts users with easy-to-read measurement history and direct links to healthcare systems, allowing them to seek medical help to minimise future symptoms.
Next Steps
The team plans to collaborate with clinicians at the National University Hospital to collect and analyse patients’ eye pressure data to train the device’s machine learning mode.
At the same time, they are working on optimising HOPES’ performance, and improving its design.
Facts and Stats
Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide and IOP is currently its only modifiable risk factor.
In the past year, nearly 3 in 5 people have not had their eyes tested. Almost a third admit their last eye test was more than two years ago. 1 in 3 admit their eyesight got worse since the start of the pandemic.
In the US, a CDC survey showed that 35% of adults didn’t seek eyesight care because they felt they didn’t need it.
Tags: award, competition, Dyson, education, engineering, Med Tech, medical, science, Singapore