Science Corporation Implants Vision-Restoring PRIMA Chip in First Stargardt Disease Patient

First Stargardt Patient Receives PRIMA Implant

Science Corporation CEO Max Hodak announced at TechCrunch Disrupt that the company has implanted its vision-restoring chip, PRIMA, into its first patient with Stargardt disease, an inherited eye disease that gradually destroys central vision. The patient received the implant in May as part of an ongoing trial at the Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia. During the patient's first rehabilitation session, he saw a letter, and during the second, he was able to read a word.

How the Device Works

Patients undergo an hour-long procedure that plants a small chip in the back of the eye, where the photoreceptors have degenerated. They then wear camera-equipped glasses that transmit a view of the world to the chip, which essentially works like artificial photoreceptors. According to Hodak, the device is a two millimeter by two millimeter implant placed under the retina at the back of the eye. "It's like looking through a straw," he said, describing the field of view as black and white but high-contrast and sharp, allowing patients to see a couple letters at a time. The next step is to make the field of view bigger by developing a larger implant and smaller electrodes. Hodak said a next generation device is being worked on and will be in humans within the next year, with the goal of getting close to native acuity over the next five years.

A Broader Brain-Computer Interface Vision

Hodak, the former president and co-founder of Neuralink, framed retinal prostheses as one type of brain-computer interface alongside cochlear implants and motor prostheses. "The retina is part of the central nervous system," he said on stage. While PRIMA is commercially available in Europe for patients who have lost their sight to geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, the company believes its approach can be applied to multiple diseases, including Stargardt disease, which is currently considered incurable. The disease affects the outer retina, causing the gradual death of the eye's light-sensing cells while potentially sparing the inner retina, and it causes a central blind spot that gradually enlarges over time. Approximately 150,000 people worldwide have lost vision due to the disease.

Future Clinical Plans and Long-Term Mission

Science Corporation, founded by Hodak in 2021 after leaving Neuralink, has said its brain-computer interface sensor will be implanted inside the skull and rest on top of the brain, unlike a Neuralink device, which is inserted directly into brain tissue. Hodak said the company's first clinical indication, not yet publicly announced, is a neurodegenerative disease that everybody has heard of, and it is also looking at stroke. The long-term mission of the company, he said, is to understand how the brain creates the mind and to learn to build engineered brains. Hodak added that the company believes many people will eventually need some kind of brain-computer interface by the age of 60 or 70, and it wants to figure out how to extend not just lifespan but health span.

Sources: Techcrunch Ai