Clinical Research

Providing our patients and clients with new cutting-edge advanced therapies and treatments is integral to our mission. As the world’s only low vision organization with dedicated physical health and mental health care facilities, Lighthouse Guild has a long history of making new treatments available through participation in clinical research trials.

Our GCP-certified (Good Clinical Practices) staff includes medical internists, endocrinologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers, podiatrists, plus RNs and RPNs. In addition, our dedicated research staff are making new assistive technologies available for patient trials.

While people who are blind or visually impaired have all the health issues as do people who are fully sighted, among the visually impaired population, there is a higher incidence of obesity, diabetes, anxiety, and depression.

Recent data on the number of such patients is below.

Diabetes

Year	Patients	Visits
2018	585	3855
2019	568	3424
2020	430	2170
2021	395	1904
2022	364	1718
2023	404	2029
Anxiety and Depression
Year	Patients	Visits
2018	634	14273
2019	633	14508
2020	573	15386
2021	534	15822
2022	531	14479
2023	535	12948

Lighthouse Guild’s Participation in Clinical Research and Trials

Current Trials

Bionic Sight
Non-randomized, open-label, Phase 1/2 dose escalation study of BS01, a non-replicating, rep/cap-deleted, recombinant adeno-associated virus vector expressing an enhanced light-sensitive channel rhodopsin gene (ChronosFP).
Role: Visual Field Testing

Astellas Institute for Regenerative Biology
A Phase 1b, Multicenter, Dose Escalation, Evaluation of Safety and Tolerability of ASP7317 for Geographic Atrophy Secondary to Age-related Macular Degeneration.
Role: Microperimetry expert.

Completed Trials

Wicab, Inc. 
A Study to Evaluate the BrainPort® Vision Device in Subjects Who Are Blind
Role: Principal Investigator

Boehringer Ingelheim 
Ophthalmologic Safety Study of Pramipexole Immediate Release (IR) Versus Ropinirole in Early Parkinson’s Disease (PD) Patients
Role: Expert Panel Member and ERG Reading Center

Ocata Therapeutics 
A Phase 2, Double-Masked, Randomized, Parallel Group, Sham Surgery/Placebo Control, Multi-Center Study to Evaluate Systemic Immunosuppression Regimens as Graft Rejection Prophylaxis Following Sub-Retinal Transplantation of Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Retinal Pigmented Epithelial Cells in Patients with Geographic Atrophy Secondary to Age-related Macular Degeneration
Role: Scientific Advisor

Ophthonix Inc.
Clinical Investigation into the Vision Performance Provided by the icon Spectacle Lens System
Role: PI

Wicab Inc.
Visual Information Restoration and Rehabilitation via Sensory Substitution Technology
Role: Lead PI and Investigator

IZon
Clinical Investigation into the Vision Performance Provided by the iZon Spectacle Lens System
Role: Investigator 

Vanda Pharmaceutical Inc.
A Multicenter, Randomized, Double Masked, Placebo-Controlled, Parallel Study to Investigate the Efficacy and Safety of 20 Mg Tasimelteon Versus Placebo in Totally Blind Subjects with N24hswd Followed by an OLE Phase
Role: Collaborator with The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. 

Lighthouse Guild Technical Reports

These technical reports provide evidence-based data on vision assistive technology’s functionality, usability, and acceptance. The objective is to provide a framework for recommending accessible technology to our clients. 

Current Lighthouse Guild Technology Research projects include:

• Head-mounted displays, such as eSight, Eyedaptic, and IrisVision
• Devices and Apps that leverage Artificial intelligence (AI), such as OrCam, Envision Glasses, Seeing AI, and Lookout

Clinical Research Studies

Eye Movement Rehabilitation in Low Vision
To develop and validate new reading rehabilitation methods for patients with central vision loss.

Home-Based Vision Rehabilitation
To create a user-friendly, self-guide home vision rehabilitation

Collaborative Research: CPS: Frontier: Convergent Accessible Smart Environment for Equitable Living 
With NYU Grossman School of Medicine. This project is expected to develop technology, workflow, and interactions that will lead to an enhanced smart environment to allow efficient deployment of human capabilities for all populations.

Smart Wearables for Expanding Workplace Access for People with Blindness and Low Vision 
With NYU Grossman School of Medicine. This project aims to study and then devise smart service systems for in-office navigation for workers with blindness and low vision, with a particular focus on accessing traditional and flexible/hybrid office environments.

Training a Virtual Guide Dog for Visually Impaired People to Learn Safe Routes Using Crowd Sourcing Multimodal Data 
With the Borough of Manhattan Community College. The project aims to survey comprehensive sidewalk data in a complex urban environment, identify all travel challenges of BVI users on sidewalks and learn their travel behaviors, and develop an electronic guide Dog mobile app to provide personalized travel guidance.

Medium Operating System Support for Efficient Robust and Extensible Accessibility
With Penn State University. The research goal of this proposal is to understand the efficacy of different accessibility API design choices to improve performance and user experience, and reduce development costs of assistive technologies 

A Smartphone-Based Convertible Co-Robotic Cane for Assistive Navigation in Dynamic Environments
With Virginia Commonwealth University. To develop a user-friendly human-robot interface to allow for natural human-robot collaboration for task accomplishment

Future Expert Work in the Age of “Black Box,” Data-Intensive and Algorithmically Augmented Healthcare
With New York University Tandon School of Engineering. To develop new ways for technologies to serve experts and clients to make expert work more responsive, value-adding, and meaningful

Space-Compacting Magnification Augmented with Natural Gestures and Keyboardless Text Entry for Low Vision Smartphone
With State University of New York Stony Brook. To develop a low-vision screen magnifier to bring the users’ current focus into the edit area

Structure/Function in AMD Linking Cellular and Functional Changes in Age-Related Macular Degeneration
With Le Institut de la Vision, Paris. To identify behavioral markers of Age Related Macular Degeneration using novel imaging, eye tracking, and psychophysical techniques 

Collaborations with Industry

Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Role: Scientific Advisor 

Bionic Sight LLC, Role: Board of Managers

HERU, Role: Scientific Advisor

Nanoretina, Role: Scientific Advisor

Optobionics Corporation, Role: Scientific Advisor

SRD, Inc., Role: Scientific Advisor

Transition Optical, Role: Researcher

Vanda Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Role: Scientific Advisor