SEATTLE - In a quiet research lab on the University of Washington campus, science fiction is becoming science fact.

Look closely and you can see the circuitry embedded in the small piece of plastic.

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The $6 Million Man giving us our first look at a bionic eye, but in the year 2008 what it really looks like is a common contact lens. Look closely and you can see the circuitry embedded in the small piece of plastic.

"We're going to put electronics components and wireless on contact lenses and make it a sophisticated system," said Dr. Babak Parviz, Asst. Prof. Electrical Engineering.

Parviz has spent the past four years developing the lenses.

"One of our major areas of interest is to put a display on a contact lens. I mean imagine you could wear your computer display as a contact lens," said Parviz.

"The application for this lens are endless but one for the most significant ones is on the medical side imagine patients could wear this lens and their conditions could be monitored at all times."

Ophthalmologist and director of the refractive surgery center, Teung Shen, is also helping in the research and how it can apply to patients.

"This will be an easier way to monitor someone's health and more accurately fashion and provide real exciting new treatment options that we were not able to do before," said Shen.

There are other applications as well. Video games could become a whole new visual world.

"This would give you full mobility you could have the screen directly on your eye and walk around and see computer generated images and we're hoping to super-impose that onto the scenes that you would normally see," said Shen.

There is still a lot of research to be done, but our eyes could soon be opened to a new future within five to 10 years.

Researchers warn the first generation of lenses would likely have low resolution displays.