EYECRO CHIP

World-first trial gives blind British bookworm gift of reading again

- MARTIN BAGOT

A BOOKWORM who went blind is able to read again after becoming one of the first people in the world to be given a bionic eye.

Sheila Irvine, 70, has geographic atrophy, an advanced stage of agerelated macular degeneration.

But she has been able to learn to read and write again after the tiny 2mm by 2mm Prima chip was fitted behind her retina at the world-renowned Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.

Sheila now wears augmented-reality glasses with a video camera, which the chip uses to beam information to a pocket computer.

This then processes the information into an electrical signal that is sent to the optical nerve and which the brain interprets as vision.