Science Corporation CCO
Joined May 2009
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Richard Socarides retweeted
PRIMA is one of @TIME's Best Inventions of 2026.
As the first brain-computer interface approved for commercial use in Europe for the restoration of central vision, PRIMA has given clinical trial patients with geographic atrophy the ability to read letters, numbers, and words again.
Richard Socarides retweeted
Our first blind patient in a clinical trial with Stargardt disease received the PRIMA implant and at his first rehab session, he saw a letter, and during his second session, he read a word. Watch the video:
Richard Socarides retweeted
Blind Stargardt patient reads letter again in PRIMA by Science clinical trial.
Stargardt disease destroys central vision. There is no treatment that brings it back. This clinical trial patient was diagnosed with Stargardt disease and became legally blind – he could no longer read or recognize faces.
He's now part of the clinical trial testing Science's PRIMA implant (approved in Europe for geographic atrophy) in patients with Stargardt disease and retinitis pigmentosa. During his first rehabilitation session after surgery, he saw a letter again.
Richard Socarides retweeted
Lars-Olof Hattenbach, MD, PhD, will deliver the keynote DOG Deutsche Ophthalmologische: “Vision Restoration with the PRIMA Implant: What’s Next?” highlighting results from the PRIMA clinical trial at DOG Deutsche Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft in Berlin.
PRIMA is the first and only treatment shown in clinical trials to restore functional central vision to patients with geographic atrophy caused by age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness.
See the full list of PRIMA sessions at DOG 2026 in the link in the comments.
Richard Socarides retweeted
DOG Deutsche Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft 2026 begins today in Berlin with four sessions focused on PRIMA. Today’s program includes:
11:09 a.m. CEST: Salvatore Grisanti, MD, PhD, on “Implant Technique for the PRIMA Subretinal Neurostimulation System in Atrophic AMD: Insights, Safety, and Surgical Considerations”
11:09 a.m. CEST: Nicole Eter, MD, PhD, on “Multimodal Retinal Imaging for PRIMA Subretinal Implantation in Patients with Geographic Atrophy”
11:18 a.m. CEST: Boris Stanzel, MD, PhD, on “Evaluation of Intraoperative OCT (iOCT) During Subretinal Implantation of the PRIMA Retina Implant”
12:30 p.m. CEST: Lars-Olof Hattenbach, MD, PhD, on “Artificial Vision with a Retinal Chip: New Hope in the Fight Against Blindness”
See the full PRIMA program at DOG 2026 in the link in the comments.
Richard Socarides retweeted
All of our patients until now have had age-related macular degeneration (AMD). I'm excited that we've implanted our first Stargardt's patient, the first of several new indications we are now bringing to the clinic. Our PRIMalia study is enrolling in Sydney!
Blind Stargardt patient reads letter again in PRIMA by Science clinical trial.
Stargardt disease destroys central vision. There is no treatment that brings it back. This clinical trial patient was diagnosed with Stargardt disease and became legally blind – he could no longer read or recognize faces.
He's now part of the clinical trial testing Science's PRIMA implant (approved in Europe for geographic atrophy) in patients with Stargardt disease and retinitis pigmentosa. During his first rehabilitation session after surgery, he saw a letter again.
Richard Socarides retweeted
scifi 2, our new headstage from @ScienceCorp_ . if your work involves recording or stimulating brains, i bet it will make you more productive! only $2k for academics.
Richard Socarides retweeted
always fun talking to ashlee
This dude's brain cooks. Our live podcast with @maxhodak_
Get the Core Memory podcast wherever you and on our YouTube channel in the replies. Crazy, fascinating chat.
Richard Socarides retweeted
Science CEO @maxhodak_ spoke at TECH by @handelsblatt about the PRIMA implant for blindness caused by AMD/GA – and the landmark clinical trial published in The @NEJM.
Germany has been a key partner in this work from the beginning. Several PRIMA clinical trial centers were based there, and we expect it to be the first market where PRIMA is commercially available later this year.
Richard Socarides retweeted
Construction is underway at our updated Science Foundry facility in Durham, NC for the manufacture of next-generation BCI devices.
Richard Socarides retweeted
What does it take to engineer a smaller, lighter, and more ergonomic PRIMA? Watch Episode 1: Our team tackles the next generation PRIMA Glasses.
Richard Socarides retweeted
Excited to launch a new podcast dedicated to conversations on the future of neurotech, computing, intelligence, and more.
First guest: @maxhodak_ founder & CEO of @ScienceCorp_, which is building PRIMA, a retinal prosthetic that’s restoring meaningful vision for patients with blindness caused by age-related macular degeneration.
Science is also developing a biohybrid brain implant that grows living neurons directly onto a silicon chip, then interfaces that system with the cortex. The possibility space here is vast and new. Imagine growing new areas of the brain.
Sections
00:00 What counts as neurotech?
01:45 History of brain-computer interfaces and the smartphone dividend
07:25 PRIMA - How Science is restoring vision in blind patients
10:10 Why stimulating bipolar cells works when the optic nerve doesn't
30:30 Are we bottlenecked by biology or engineering?
32:40 Expanding the brain's bandwidth beyond 10 bits per second
37:00 Can we add new areas to the brain?
37:46 Biohybrid BCIs: neurons growing on a chip
39:20 What could neural augmentation look like?
01:13:20 How Science drives Fast R&D
01:44:00 How founders learn and level up
This is the kind of discussion I’m excited to explore on this podcast. Enjoy!
Full Episode 1 here and in links below.
Richard Socarides retweeted
Science Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder @mardinly answers the question “What if we could restore vision, communicate directly with the brain, and even extend human life with living, engineered biology?”
Click the link in the comments to watch the full episode.
Richard Socarides retweeted
Geographic atrophy due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible blindness and affects more than 5 million persons worldwide. No therapies to restore vision in such persons currently exist.
NEJM Editorial Fellow Katerina Lin, MD, explains a clinical trial in which the photovoltaic retina implant microarray (PRIMA) system restored central vision and led to a significant improvement in visual acuity. Read the full PRIMAvera trial results: nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NE…
#Ophthalmology
Richard Socarides retweeted
As we accelerate the development of our Biohybrid BCI program, we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Murat Günel as Science's new Medical Director for Brain-Computer Interfaces. Dr. Günel is Chair of Neurosurgery at Yale School of Medicine, Neurosurgeon-in-Chief of Yale New Haven Health System, and a Member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Read the blog post in the comments.
Richard Socarides retweeted
"People use [AI] every day, but it is still underestimated the degree to which it is going to change everybody’s lives over the next decade. We’re really now starting to see that. [AI agents] are no longer just a curiosity. They’re now having economic impacts that are going to accelerate."
Science CEO, Max Hodak, joined @POLITICO for 5 Questions: politico.com/newsletters/dig…
5 Questions for Max Hodak politi.co/4t4q8ed via @politico
Richard Socarides retweeted
“It’s the first time that any attempt at vision restoration has achieved such results in a large number of patients… This is really something we couldn’t have dreamt of when we started on this journey more than two decades ago.”
In a new interview, José-Alain Sahel, MD, a senior author of the PRIMA clinical trial now published in @NEJM, shares his opinion on the resilience required to turn a decades-old concept into clinical reality.
