Grant: Project Grant

In this project, a novel laser therapy will be developed for vascular eye disease treatment. It utilizes ultrafast laser pulses that are tightly focused to a micron-size volume inside vessels in eye diseases. Because of the locally very high instantaneous laser power density, multiple photons will be simultaneously absorbed at the focal point (and only there) to generate heat to destroy the vessel. Outside of the focal point, multiphoton absorption does not occur because the optical power density is below the threshold value. Compared to conventional method for laser therapy of vascular diseases, our new method will be able to destroy selected vessels much precisely, while leave surrounding tissues intact. Conventional laser therapy is based on one photon absorption, which could occur along the light pathway beyond the focal point although the absorption is the highest at the focal point. This could cause collateral damage to normal eye tissues and affect vision. If successfully developed, our new laser treatment technology could bring immediate benefits to Canadians with corneal neovasularization (NV) disease and other vascular diseases e.g. diabetic retinopathy/macular degeneration. It is estimated that 1.4 milllion people develop corneal NV worldwide per year, 12% of whom suffer the subsequent loss of vision.