José-Alain Sahel

New Capabilities

As of May 2026: Co-senior author and vision restoration pioneer

Stanford researchers implanted a chip smaller than a Tic Tac under the retinas of 38 blind patients. A year later, 27 could read again, including some who read entire books. The PRIMA device, published October 20, 2025 in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first prosthetic to restore functional vision to people with macular degeneration—the leading cause of irreversible blindness.

Updated May 19