Their big breakthrough in understanding myopia occurred in 2008 when they studied a particular group of people who had a genetic form of myopia that’s very severe. They discovered a gene mutation that was causing the myopia.

“It turns out it was a mutation in the cone photoreceptors,” said Jay Neitz. “We then realized that it’s really just the way that the images are being encoded on the retina.”

What’s supposed to happen as your eye grows, is that things should begin to go out of focus in the periphery of your vision. That’s a signal for the eyes to stop growing.

But as long as things are still clear in the periphery, the eyes think this person must still be farsighted, because in the natural world things in the periphery are far away.

Neitz said his team was able to design a lens to make central vision clear and in focus, and give the peripheal vision much lower contrast.

“It recreates what is supposed to be going on with our eyes before we started putting all of these things in front of our face like computer screens and tablets,” he said.