The best part of being a scientist is when I read articles like this and feel proud to be part of the same community. According to a WIRED magazine article, “scientists report that they’ve created a contact lens that can deliver a high concentration of antibiotic at a constant rate for more than 30 days.”

The geek in me thinks this is a really cool discovery from the “wow, it’s possible to DO that?” standpoint. But what really makes me love these guys is the fact that this discovery addresses a specific medical need, and that the materials used to construct the lenses are already FDA approved. I was shocked to see how inefficient eye drops really are…

“Although eye drops account for 90 percent of all eye medication, drops are irritating and inefficient. Doctors estimate that only 1 to 7 percent of the medication actually gets absorbed into the eye, while the rest drips down the cheeks or into the back of the throat.

Even worse, many patients hate eye drops or forget to take them. For example, up to 59 percent of glaucoma patients regularly skip their drops, even though untreated glaucoma can lead to blindness.”

The lenses still need to be tested in humans, but the possibilities involved here are pretty awesome, and should be on the market pretty rapidly. And I think that is awesome.