Soft hydrogel contact lens
Lente de contacto blanda de hidrogel
- Date
- 1959-1961 · confidence high
- Place
- Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Prague, Czechia
- Credited to
- Otto Wichterle and Drahoslav Lím
- Field
- Communication
What it is
A contact lens of hydrophilic polymer (HEMA) that absorbs water and is comfortable on the eye. Wichterle made the first lenses by spin-casting with a homemade device assembled from toy parts.
HEMA hydrogels were published in Nature in 1960 (Wichterle and Lím); the spin-casting was done at Christmas 1961. The rights were sold in 1965 to a US company and the lenses were approved in 1971.
What it led to
- mass-produced soft contact lenses (Bausch & Lomb, 1971)
- disposable and extended-wear lenses
- hydrogels in medicine: drug delivery, dressings, implants