Science Corporation Implants PRIMA Chip in First Stargardt Disease Patient

Stargardt disease is an inherited eye disease that gradually destroys central vision. Hodak, former president and co-founder of Neuralink, said on stage that the retina is part of the central nervous system and that cochlear implants, retinal prostheses and motor prostheses are all different types of brain-computer interfaces. He described a vision in which BCIs expand into a wide range of medical technology applications, rather than serving only as a way to control computers.

PRIMA is commercially available in Europe for patients who have lost their sight to geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration. Science Corporation believes its approach can be applied to multiple diseases, including Stargardt disease, which affects the outer retina and causes the gradual death of the eye's light-sensing cells while potentially sparing the inner retina, the part that passes visual signals to the brain. It causes a central blind spot that gradually enlarges over time. Approximately 150,000 people worldwide have lost vision due to the disease.

Hodak said the device approach works because vision is electrical activity down the optic nerve. “That's all vision is to the brain, and so if you can get the optic nerve to signal the rest of the brain correctly, then you can provide vision to it,” he said.

To use the device, patients undergo an hour-long procedure that places a small chip in the back of the eye where photoreceptors have degenerated. They then wear camera-equipped glasses that transmit a view of the world to the chip. The implant functions as artificial photoreceptors. Science Corporation said that during the patient's first rehabilitation session, he saw a letter, and during the second, he was able to read a word.

Hodak described the current implant as a two millimeter by two millimeter device placed under the back of the eye. “It's like looking through a straw,” he said. The patient's central vision is black and white but sharp and high-contrast, allowing him to see a couple of letters at a time. The next step is to increase the field of view. Hodak said that would require addressing the curvature of the eye and making electrodes smaller to get closer to native levels of detail. “I think we have a clear path,” he said. “There's a next generation that's being worked on that'll be in humans in the next year, and over the next five years, I think we'll be able to get pretty close to native acuity.”

Hodak founded Science Corporation in 2021 after leaving Neuralink. The company has outlined plans to develop advanced neural engineering and brain-computer interface technology, but it first wants to prove its methods work and build a sustainable business, which is why it is working to restore vision in visually impaired patients.

Science Corporation has previously 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. The company believes the device could help address neurological conditions, such as possibly monitoring neurological activity in patients with brain tumors.

Hodak said the company's first clinical indication, which has not been announced publicly, is a neurodegenerative disease that everybody has heard of. The company is also looking at stroke. He said that if connections can be placed into the deep brain in two different areas, it may be possible to add new cortical areas, something he said is not possible with conventional electrodes. Longer term, he said, the company's mission is to understand how the brain creates the mind and to learn to build engineered brains.

Hodak also said Science Corporation believes many people will eventually use some kind of BCI. While the company is not designing for healthy 40-year-olds, he said it believes people will eventually need a BCI by the age of 60 or 70. “We want to figure out how do we extend not just lifespan but health span,” he said.