Light That Restores Sight: Stanford’s PRIMA Eye Chip Gives the Blind a Second Chance to See

After decades of trial and error, researchers at Stanford Medicine have achieved what once seemed impossible — restoring sight to the blind. Their revolutionary PRIMA eye implant, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, uses invisible light and a rice-sized chip to restore reading vision in patients suffering from advanced macular degeneration.

A Vision Chip Powered by Light, Not Wires At first glance, it looks like an ordinary microchip — but it’s a miniature photovoltaic system designed to convert light into sight. The PRIMA system, created by physicist and biomedical engineer Daniel Palanker at Stanford, combines a subretinal implant with augmented reality glasses that project images directly onto the retina, bypassing damaged photoreceptors. “The goal is not to fix vision - it’s to restore vision to people who are completely blind,” - Palanker The glasses capture visual scenes and project them using invisible infrared light, which the implant converts into electrical signals that activate retinal cells.

“Each pixel is like a tiny solar panel, turning light into electrical current,” Palanker explained. Because it transmits both power and data through light, PRIMA operates entirely wirelessly — no cables, no external batteries, just the natural transparency of the human eye.

Working With the Brain, Not Around It Unlike brain–computer interfaces that bypass the eyes entirely, PRIMA works within the eye’s natural circuitry.

Every electrical signal still travels through the optic nerve to the visual cortex, allowing patients to process images as naturally as possible. “It’s not an artificial vision system — it’s real sight, restored,” Palanker emphasized.

This makes PRIMA far less invasive than cortical implants while maintaining a more natural experience of perception.

From Concept to Human Trials The idea dates back to 2004, when Palanker first envisioned using light itself as a power source.

After years of preclinical research, the French company Pixium Vision was founded to bring the implant to patients. Human trials began in 2018, following 38 participants across 17 hospitals in Europe — all aged over 60 and living with geographic atrophy, a late-stage form of macular degeneration. For the first time, many of these individuals could read, recognize faces, and see their loved ones again — a once unimaginable breakthrough.

The Next Frontier: Color Vision and Sharper Detail Today’s version of PRIMA restores only black-and-white vision, but a new generation is already in development, featuring five-times-smaller pixels and higher resolution.

This could one day bring color and fine detail, moving the technology closer to replicating natural human sight. Clinical trials are also expanding to other retinal diseases such as Stargardt’s disease and retinitis pigmentosa.

The Return of Light — and Life “Patients are reading again, playing cards, solving crosswords — reconnecting with life,” said Palanker.

“When you restore someone’s vision, you don’t just give them back a sense — you give them back their identity, their relationships, their hope.” Thanks to PRIMA, light is no longer just something patients can see again — it’s something they can live again.

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