The cyborg eye implant could one day restore vision by connecting directly to the brain

The co-founder of Neuralink has unveiled plans for an eye implant that could one day cure blindness.

The project, called Science Eye, plans to treat several types of blindness for which there is currently no cure: retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

As you’d expect from someone teaming up with Elon Musk to build a brain-computer interface company, the Science Eye is suitably science fiction.

It will work by stimulating the optic nerve with an implanted, flexible, ultra-dense micro-LED display panel placed directly over the retina. The company will then use gene therapy to act as a go-between and link the two together.

Ultimately, the Science Eye itself could act as a brain-computer interface, providing cyborg-like benefits to its wearers.

This could include eliminating the need for glasses or even serving as a virtual reality device instead of a clunky headset.

Max Hodak, the former president of Neuralink, is behind the technology and said his startup Science Corp has already raised $160 million (£132 million) to commercialize the technology.

Hodak’s company takes a different approach than Neuralink, which drills holes in a patient’s skull to insert electrodes into the brain. Instead, Science Corp. Use photoreceptors to transmit information through the optic nerve and into the brain.

And while the company says it will work with animals first, it hopes to use the implant in human patients in the not-too-distant future.

“This is something that we think will improve as we learn more — a lot of this neuroscience is hard to do in animals — but we hope to restore the independence of even our (prospective) early patients,” the company said.

“Our primary focus is to demonstrate sufficient safety data in animals so that we can move to an initial human clinical trial, which is the first step toward a commercial end product.”