Science Corporation CEO Max Hodak announced that the firm implanted its vision‑restoring PRIMA chip into the first patient suffering from Stargardt disease, an inherited disorder that progressively erodes central sight.
Hodak, who previously served as president and co‑founder of Neuralink, spoke on stage at Techdaily Disrupt, describing how the PRIMA effort fits into the company’s wider goal of creating a novel brain‑computer interface (BCI).
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The retina belongs to the central nervous system,” Hodak said. “We view cochlear implants, retinal prostheses, motor prostheses as various forms of BCI.”
He sketched a future where BCIs are used across many medical technologies, not merely for computer control.
Although PRIMA is already sold in Europe for individuals blinded by geographic atrophy—a late stage of age‑related macular degeneration—Science Corporation believes the same technology can tackle other conditions, including Stargardt disease, which presently has no cure.
Stargardt disease damages the outer retina, leading to the slow loss of photoreceptor cells while often leaving the inner retina intact, the layer that relays visual signals to the brain. This produces a central blind spot that widens over time. Roughly 150,000 people worldwide have vision loss due to the disorder.
Hodak added, “When I describe the brain as a computer, vision is just an electrical signal traveling down the optic nerve. If we can get the optic nerve to convey the correct pattern to the rest of the brain, we can restore sight.”
The company reports that its first Stargardt patient received the PRIMA implant in May during an ongoing trial at Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia. In the initial rehab session the patient perceived a single letter; in the second session he could read a whole word.
To operate the device, surgeons place a tiny chip behind the eye where photoreceptors have died, a procedure lasting about an hour. Patients then wear glasses equipped with a camera that streams the visual scene to the implant, which functions as artificial photoreceptors.
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The implant this patient carries measures two millimetres by two millimetres and sits beneath the retina, like looking through a straw,” Hodak remarked. “It does not provide a wide field of view or colour vision; instead it offers a small, high‑contrast black‑and‑white patch in the centre of vision that lets users discern a couple of letters at a time.
The next step is to enlarge the field of view, which requires a larger implant that conforms to the eye’s curvature and finer electrodes to approach natural detail.”
He continued, “We have a clear roadmap. A next‑generation version is already in development and should be tested in humans within the next year. Over the following five years I expect we can achieve acuity close to that of a healthy eye.”
After departing Neuralink in 2021, Hodak founded Science Corporation with plans to advance neural engineering and BCI technology. First, however, the firm aims to validate its approach and build a sustainable business, which is why it is pursuing vision restoration for the visually impaired.
Regarding Science Corporation’s broader BCI platform, the company has said its sensor will sit on the surface of the brain inside the skull, unlike Neuralink’s probes that penetrate brain tissue.
The firm suggests the device could aid neurological conditions—for example, monitoring activity in patients with brain tumors.
Hodak hinted, “In the near term we will apply our first clinical indication, which has not been disclosed publicly, to a well‑known neurodegenerative disease. We are also exploring stroke recovery; if we can link two deep‑brain regions after a lesion, we might be able to add new cortical areas, something impossible with conventional electrodes.
Ultimately, our long‑term mission is to decipher how the brain generates consciousness and to learn how to construct engineered brains.”
Hodak concluded that while Science Corporation is not targeting healthy 40‑year‑olds, he anticipates that many individuals will require some form of BCI by the time they reach 60 or 70. “Our aim is to extend not just lifespan but health span,” he said.