Conception

ACTO has intensified cooperations with university institutes in Aachen and, of its own choice, elsewhere. Integrated here are qualified top researchers with their own independent research projects on various topics, for example:

• Minimally invasive biopsy of the cornea
• Optical rehabilitation with an artificial cornea
• Interim solutions in operative procedures in vitreoretinal surgery
• New “Sustained Drug Delivery” concepts in the area of the eye
• Innovative implants in glaucoma surgery

Furthermore, ACTO is planning and realizing protocols of clinical experimental tests for devices and drugs as well as for pharmaceutical products. In particular, ACTO has at its disposal competence and resources from its own clinical studies with patient examinations.

These projects are operated independently and, over stretches, are funded independently or jointly. With successful outcomes, fund raising efforts are managed and coordinated.

Within the scope of confidential Research & Development (R&D), ACTO is utilizing the opportunity to provide projects of industry with resources from the university without these projects needing to be strictly disclosed publically. This offers small companies in the field of ophthalmology the opportunity to become involved in the sense of outsourcing of R&D in cooperation with innovative pioneers of universities and their clinical physicians.

By means of project-based cooperation agreements, ACTO is forging new ties to industrial development partners over a particular time. ACTO is also coordinating scientific projects of expert partners of public, profit-oriented research institutions. Here, framework contracts and project-based cooperation agreements between ACTO and RWTH Aachen University are the guarantee of a balanced cash flow into the public institutions.

Basically, ACTO is also offering the founding and establishment of spin-offs under an ACTO holding. This special option will be reserved for interesting projects, with respect to social and rehabilitative aspects of specific approaches, in order to exploit the dynamics of a spin-off for application demonstration. Essential is, that surpluses acquired under the umbrella of ACTO are utilized to benefit research.

The transfer services concern especially the continuity of research, consultation and project coordination on an application-oriented level.

This also includes the accompanying of project ideas from their conception to application, in particular, through consultation and determination of suitable industrial partners in research, development and production.

Within the scope of the project “Aachen Keratoprosthesis”, the rehabilitative aspect is the focus of consideration.

By means of qualified scientific innovation, here an approach has been developed, which, though initially used as an operative aid, currently serves as a final implant to prevent blindness.

Through the research on new endotamponades as well as the production of guiding documentations (Video/CD- ROM), ACTO can efficiently accompany research, in particular closely to the clinical happenings, from development to clinical application.

In the field of “New Media in the Service of Medicine, Telemedicine and Visual Impairment”, ACTO has dedicated itself, by means of research on computer-aided consultation and visual testing, to the automatic expert system-supported and calibrated examination of people with impaired vision as well as those with normal vision. “SOBES” and “PROZESS” as well as the new software “VisusTAS Online-Eyesight Test” are first milestones of this endeavor and have been successfully uploaded into the Internet.