The MERLIN project addresses the global health issue of retinal diseases. The project team unites six scientific, medical and industrial partners across Europe, who jointly develop advanced retinal imaging technology.
Skyrocketing numbers of patients:
The retina is the sensory membrane at the back of the eye that detects light and converts it to neural signals. A healthy retina is key to clear vision. Unfortunately, retinal diseases affect 400 million people worldwide. The most common of these conditions, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy (DR), are major causes of visual impairment and blindness. These diseases have a serious impact on patients’ lives and represent a heavy economic burden on society (yearly cost of AMD is $343 billion). Due to population ageing and changes in life styles, the number of patients with altered retinas will double over the next 40 years.
Ongoing revolution in retinal therapies:
On the bright side, therapeutic science has achieved spectacular progress over the last two decades with effective drugs available for treating particular forms of AMD and DR, and multiple breakthrough treatments are now being evaluated for various retinal pathologies. Hopes for preserving patients’ sight are higher than ever, yet large proportions of patients remain undiagnosed: current estimates are 25% in AMD and over 50% in DR.
Widely adopted innovations in imaging tech:
These challenges have fostered the development of advanced retinal imaging modalities, each revealing a different aspect of the tissue and providing useful diagnostic insight. A technology called optical coherence tomography (OCT) has enabled doctors to distinguish the thin superimposed layers that form the retinal tissue, and thus better manage several diseases. OCT is now being massively adopted: over 10,000 OCT units are sold each year.
Why OCT is not enough:
However, state-of-the-art OCT devices are still limited in their ability to discriminate small details, with a resolution no better than 15-20µm. As a consequence, many diseases can develop “silently” for years and cause microscopic damage in the retina without being detected. Additionally, most treatments act at the level of retinal cells, which are invisible with current imaging techniques. Therefore, as therapies progress, there are needs as well as business opportunities for enhanced retinal imaging technologies.
MERLIN’s solution:
The ambition of MERLIN is to improve in-depth diagnosis and personalized healthcare in retinal ophthalmology. To do so, the project partners are developing a next-generation OCT device that overcomes current limitations in retinal imaging. The goal is to deliver earlier and more in-depth diagnostic information on the retina, using multiple imaging modalities with cellular-level resolution.
