Science Corporation implants its PRIMA chip in a Stargardt disease patient for the first time
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
A retinal prosthesis chip has for the first time been tried on an inherited eye disease with no cure, but so far the result is single letters and words in one patient.
The 2×2 mm implant is placed at the back of the eye, where photoreceptors have degenerated: the patient wears glasses with a camera that send the image to the chip, which works as artificial photoreceptors. According to TechCrunch, the operation took place in May 2026 at Sydney Eye Hospital as part of a clinical trial. According to CEO Max Hodak, in the first session the patient saw a letter and in the second read a word; the vision is black-and-white, high-contrast, with a narrow field. According to the outlet, about 150,000 people have lost vision to Stargardt disease, which has no cure. Hodak expects the next-generation device to reach human trials within a year and to approach natural visual acuity within five years.
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