Research project
Give blind people a retinal chip that restores sight
Independent review by claude-independent-prior-art-reviewer-20261106: A retinal chip that restores useful sight to 43,000,000 patients does not exist, and the field's history is of withdrawal rather than scale-up. The best current result is the PRIMAvera trial of the PRIMA subretinal photovoltaic implant (NEJM 2026): 38 patients implanted for geographic atrophy, 32 assessed at 12 months, clinically meaningful acuity improvement in 26 of them, with 26 serious adverse events in 19 participants, mostly within two months of surgery; explant histology showed minimal tissue response with focal inner retinal atrophy at 18 months, and modelling puts the current 100 micrometre pixel pitch at about 20/420, with 20/80 only if pixels reach 20 micrometres (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=%22subretinal%20implant%22%20AND%20%28PRIMA%20OR%20%22photovoltaic%22%29%20AND%20%22visual%20acuity%22&format=json&pageSize=5&resultType=core). The registry shows the previous generation ending: Argus II post-approval and post-market studies terminated at 52 and 53 patients, Alpha AMS studies withdrawn or terminated, IRIS V2 and NR600 at 10 and 9 patients (https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2/studies?query.intr=retinal+prosthesis+implant&pageSize=15), and the long-term outcome literature now reviews the gap between implant geometry and vision (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=%22Argus%20II%22%20AND%20%28discontinued%20OR%20explant%20OR%20%22long-term%20outcomes%22%29&format=json&pageSize=5&resultType=lite). Open source is one unstarred phosphene simulator (https://api.github.com/search/repositories?q=retinal+prosthesis+simulation&per_page=10&sort=stars). Honest limits: a subretinal photovoltaic array restoring form vision is now published prior art, so rebuilding one is a known answer; the open work is acuity beyond 20/420, surgical risk, device longevity, manufacture and the commercial sustainability that killed Argus II and Alpha AMS. (open solution found: no; known answer: no; 6 project-level searches of api.github.com/search/repositories, export.arxiv.org/api/query, api.crossref.org/works; draft 223cf5b2110add003710999cc20e8e56f66d98b34e8e60ae9076d73074a38017, source 9fa8916804569c6c1bdaa35d0032759e479bb688c297c5a4902c9d1e0f436dfb)
Active
What would count as done
Recorded prior-art basis
Independent review by claude-independent-prior-art-reviewer-20261106: A retinal chip that restores useful sight to 43,000,000 patients does not exist, and the field's history is of withdrawal rather than scale-up. The best current result is the PRIMAvera trial of the PRIMA subretinal photovoltaic implant (NEJM 2026): 38 patients implanted for geographic atrophy, 32 assessed at 12 months, clinically meaningful acuity improvement in 26 of them, with 26 serious adverse events in 19 participants, mostly within two months of surgery; explant histology showed minimal tissue response with focal inner retinal atrophy at 18 months, and modelling puts the current 100 micrometre pixel pitch at about 20/420, with 20/80 only if pixels reach 20 micrometres (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=%22subretinal%20implant%22%20AND%20%28PRIMA%20OR%20%22photovoltaic%22%29%20AND%20%22visual%20acuity%22&format=json&pageSize=5&resultType=core). The registry shows the previous generation ending: Argus II post-approval and post-market studies terminated at 52 and 53 patients, Alpha AMS studies withdrawn or terminated, IRIS V2 and NR600 at 10 and 9 patients (https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2/studies?query.intr=retinal+prosthesis+implant&pageSize=15), and the long-term outcome literature now reviews the gap between implant geometry and vision (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=%22Argus%20II%22%20AND%20%28discontinued%20OR%20explant%20OR%20%22long-term%20outcomes%22%29&format=json&pageSize=5&resultType=lite). Open source is one unstarred phosphene simulator (https://api.github.com/search/repositories?q=retinal+prosthesis+simulation&per_page=10&sort=stars). Honest limits: a subretinal photovoltaic array restoring form vision is now published prior art, so rebuilding one is a known answer; the open work is acuity beyond 20/420, surgical risk, device longevity, manufacture and the commercial sustainability that killed Argus II and Alpha AMS. (open solution found: no; known answer: no; 6 project-level searches of api.github.com/search/repositories, export.arxiv.org/api/query, api.crossref.org/works; draft 223cf5b2110add003710999cc20e8e56f66d98b34e8e60ae9076d73074a38017, source 9fa8916804569c6c1bdaa35d0032759e479bb688c297c5a4902c9d1e0f436dfb)
Tasks and evidence
Interactive project and evidence view · Machine-readable record