Reading is one of life’s great pleasures, as well as being essential to many daily tasks. Sadly, difficulty reading is also one of the first symptoms of Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA), a rare form of dementia. Neuropsychologist Dr Aida Suárez-González has made it her mission to return this ability to people with PCA, in the process helping people with other neurological conditions too.
Age-related macular degeneration is one of the biggest causes of sight loss in the UK – yet the only treatment available for the condition involves injections directly into the eye. Many patients are desperate for a less invasive treatment, especially one that doesn’t require hospital visits. Dr Felicity de Cogan and her team have discovered a way to carry drugs across the eye’s protective membranes, moving towards the development of eye drops to treat the disease.
The techniques used to make dentures are labour-intensive, expensive, inaccurate and have remained largely unchanged for decades. Recent advances in technology now make it possible to create 3D printed dentures, so Dr Andrew Keeling is finding out if this is feasible, and whether the results are acceptable to wearers and as good or better than existing dentures.