A chip in the eye to restore sight

The Prima chip next to a pencil - a tiny device which could have a huge impact

For all the talk of an AI revolution in healthcare some advances in medical science seem to be taking an awfully long time to arrive - look at the hunt for a cure for Parkinson’s for instance where the two great advances levodopa and DBS (deep brain stimulation) happened in the last century, and we have seen no similar breakthrough since.

How heartening therefore to hear today of what sounds like a sci-fi idea - an electronic eye which could start transforming the lives of millions of people living with little or no sight as early as next year.

This innovation is the work of an American startup called Science Corporation. In a clinical trial involving 17 sites across five countries, including London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital, 84% of participants were able to read letters, numbers and words using a device called Prima implanted in an eye. All participants had lost sight due to a condition called age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which is the leading cause of vision loss in people over 50.

Sheila Irvine, one of the Moorfields patients on the trial, says she was a bookworm before AMD took away her sight: “It’s made a big difference. Reading takes you into another world, I’m definitely more optimistic.It’s a new way of looking through your eyes, and it was dead exciting when I began seeing a letter. It’s not simple, learning to read again, but the more hours I put in, the more I pick up.”

Each patient has a tiny 2mm by 2mm microchip inserted under their retina. The chip is covered with what are in effect solar panels which are activated when the patient wears a set of augmented reality glasses with a camera looking out at the world. Science’s chief executive Max Hodak explains what happens next: “Then you project onto the implant in the same way as an overhead projector works, and wherever light is absorbed, it stimulates.” What the implant stimulates is the eye’s photoreceptor cells, which turn light into signals the brain can interpret.

Max Hodak, who was previously a senior executive at Elon Musk’s brain computer interface company Neuralink, says the technology has one major advantage over other attempts to do the same thing:

“All the other devices that have been tried for this have needed a battery or a cable coming out of the eye or some other thing. Here, we send it energy and information at the same time in the same projection.”

The implant is only switched on a month after the operation to allow the eye time to settle. Each patient then has to go through an intensive rehabilitation programme to learn how to make the system work.

Mahi Muqit, senior vitreoretinal consultant at Moorfields, stresses what a major step forward this is: “In the history of artificial vision, this represents a new era. Blind patients are actually able to have meaningful central vision restoration, which has never been done before.”

The next step is for Science Corporation to get regulatory approval for its device - Max Hodak says that as long as there are no hold-ups he hopes this revolutionary treatment will be coming to the European market by next summer. After many years of development with no revenues coming in, that day cannot come quickly enough for the company and its backers.

But for millions like Sheila Irvine who lose sight in middle age far more is at stake - the hope that what they have lost could soon be regained.