Recently, Brad Pitt has given an interview which allowed him to look back on his long and extremely successful film career.

One of the roles that made him an international film star was the part of Louis de Pointe du Lac in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, based on a novel written by Anne Rice. To play a vampire, he had to wear coloured contact lenses, which – in 1994, when the film was produced – were not as comfortable as they are today. Consequently, Pitt complained that the makeup (of which the lenses constituted a major part) was the worst thing about filming the box-office hit.

However, thinking about how Inteview with the Vampire changed his career, the actor is quite happy that he managed to finish filming it.

At the moment, Pitt is promoting his latest picture, Moneyball, which premiered in the US on 23rd September and has been widely praised by film critics around the world.

Clive Owen’s career continues to develop at a breakneck pace. After finishing Trust and Intruders, the actor can now be seen, alongside Robert de Niro, Jason Statham and Dominic Purcell, in Killer Elite.

The film, directed by Gary McKendry, tells the story (based on a true one), of former special ops agents forced to defend themselves against a secret military society leader.

Owen’s role was probably the most challenging one. In order to play the character of Spike, he had to alter his appearance significantly. This, apart from growing a moustache, included wearing a coloured contact lenses that made one of his eyes look damaged (due to an accident related to the violent nature of his profession).

So far, the film has received mixed reviews, but several critics highlighted the power of Owen’s performance. The actor has already started several new projects and is going to appear as Ernest Hemingway, playing opposite Nicole Kidman and Robert Duvall.

Two researchers from the University of Wisconsin have been given the New Innovator Award by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award includes a $1.5 million grant for each scientist.

The NIH stated that Douglas Weibel and Hongrui Jiang were granted the award because they are creative investigators proposing extremely innovative projects, which are likely to help create breakthrough technologies.

Jian, who is an electrical and computer engineering associate professor at the UW (also affiliated with the Eye Research Institute), is going to use his grant to develop self-focusing contact lenses for aging patients. Such contact lenses would help presbyopic patients by changing their focal lengths just like video cameras, this way allowing sharp distant and near vision.

The researcher’s project is at an early stage of development, however, and Jiang is very grateful that the National Institutes of Health wanted to support it.

The other UW researcher who was awarded by the NIH, Douglas Weibel, specialises in bacteria and is looking for new ways of creating and destroying their cell walls.

The manufacturer of innovative, silicone hydrogel polymer contact lenses materials, Contamac Ltd., has announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent protecting its products, particularly the company’s popular contact lens material, Definitive.

The patent covers a wide variety of elements related to the materials, such as formulation design, polymer composition, contact lens manufacturing (including the provision of an indication for finished contact lenses obtained in the process of production).

Contamac stated that the Definitive, contact lens material was created to be used for specialty contact lenses because of its high water content and low modulus leading to improved patient comfort all day long.

So far, as many as 800,000 units of the material have been sold around the world, which means that thousands of patients wear contact lenses made of Definitive. In the US, it is available through such laboratories specialising in contact lenses as Metro Optics, Unilens, Art Optical and X-Cel/Walman.

The American Food and Drug Administration has granted Menicon Z (also referred to as tisilfocon A), a gas permeable contact lenses material manufactured by Menicon Co., ltd. an expanded indication for the management of conditions associated with irregular corneas (in non-diseased eyes). The conditions for which Menicon Z is now indicated include pellucid marginal degeneration, post penetrating keratoplasty, keratoconus, post radial keratotomy and post LASIK surgery.

The new indication means that Menicon Z is a hyper-oxygen delivery (Dk 163) material suitable for the treatment of patients with irregular corneas.

At the moment, the material is available to authorised manufacturers in standard sized blanks, but Menicon is planning to release a large-diameter blank (16.5 mm) for sale to authorised laboratories within the next few weeks.

The information constitutes great news for all patients who have eye problems connected with the irregular shape of their corneas, as it means new contact lenses designed to treat their conditions should be available on the market  soon.