| Developers: | Science Corp |
| Date of the premiere of the system: | Nov 2022 |
| Branches: | Pharmaceuticals, Medicine, Healthcare |
2022: Implant Announcement
On November 21, 2022, a Science Eye implant was presented for the treatment of diseases that provoke blindness. This is the development of Science Corp, which in 2021 was created by co-founder and former head of Neuralink Max Hodak.
A device in the form of a visual prosthesis designed to treat retinitis pigmentosa (CR) and dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), two forms of serious blindness that do not have good options for patients as of November 2022.
The Science Eye prosthesis is a combination device that uses optogenetic gene therapy directed at optic nerve cells (retinal ganglion cells), combined with an implanted microLED flexible thin film ultra-dense display panel mounted directly above the retina.
In diseases such as CR and dry AMD, light-sensitive cells in the back of the eye (photoreceptors) die, but the cells of the optic nerve itself remain. By inserting the gene into optic nerve cells, doctors will be able to stimulate them with a small display inserted into the eye.
According to the developers, making the optic nerve itself photosensitive does not mean restoring vision as such: each eye has more than 100 million photoreceptors, but only about 1 million retinal ganglion cells. In other words, the signal sent along the optic nerve is strongly compressed compared to the image that is formed on photoreceptors through the lens of the eye. It is this compressed data that stimulates the Science Eye implant in the optic nerve, and the images that the first patients will receive can be very different from what users consider vision. This situation will improve as new knowledge accumulates, but even in this case, the developers hope to return significant independence even to our (future) early patients.
Science Eye has nothing to do with cataracts, which as of November 2022 are usually easily surgically treatable, or glaucoma, where high pressure inside the eye leads to atrophy of the optic nerve itself. Someday, according to the developers, it will be possible to regenerate the optic nerve, and many interesting studies are directed in this direction, but this goes beyond our work on Science Eye.[1]
Notes
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