Yale Neurosurgeon Joins Max Hodak’s Startup Ahead Of First Human Sensor Implant

Science Corporation has recruited Dr. Murat Günel, the chair of neurosurgery at Yale School of Medicine, to advise and help lead its inaugural U.S. human tests of a biohybrid brain-computer sensor. The company, founded by former Neuralink president Max Hodak, plans to place an early-generation device on the surface of a patient’s brain as a first step toward an implant that will later incorporate lab-grown nerve cells linked to electronics.

The San Francisco–area firm, launched in 2021, raised $230 million in a recent financing round that pushed its private valuation to about $1.5 billion. Its nearest-term commercial product is a retinal implant called PRIMA, which Science acquired in 2024 and has been shepherding through clinical work for people with vision loss due to macular degeneration. But Hodak has long sought a wider mission: building more durable ways to connect machines to human neural tissue for both medical therapies and, eventually, sensory or cognitive augmentation.

Science’s lead technical team, headed by co-founder and chief science officer Alan Mardinly, has spent years designing a hybrid sensor intended to marry silicon electronics and cultured neurons. The lab-grown cells are engineered to respond to light pulses and, in animal experiments published last year, a prototype could be implanted in mice and drive neural activity without obvious short-term harm. Company engineers — a small group of about 30 researchers — are now focused on refining device prototypes and developing methods to manufacture neuronal tissue to meet clinical-grade standards.

Günel will help navigate the regulatory and ethical review process as the firm prepares for trials. The immediate plan is conservative: implant a version of the sensor that omits the cultured cells and sits atop the cortex inside the skull, rather than penetrating brain tissue. Science argues the pea-sized device, which contains roughly 520 recording electrodes, represents minimal incremental risk and has told regulators it does not intend to submit those initial studies to the FDA. Instead, company officials are seeking surgical cases in which patients already require removal of a portion of skull — such as people who have had large strokes and need decompressive craniectomies — so the sensor can be positioned while the patient is in the operating room.

Proponents say the nonpenetrating approach could avoid the chronic damage caused by metal probes that stab into brain tissue, a problem some researchers believe limits the lifespan and fidelity of current implants. Critics and independent ethicists caution that any brain device, even one that rests on the surface, raises complex safety and consent questions, especially when trials enroll vulnerable patients undergoing emergency procedures. An outside neurologist who reviewed the company’s preclinical data said the concept is promising in theory but stressed that long-term studies will be needed to confirm the claim that a biologically integrated interface resists scarring and signal loss better than traditional electrodes.

If the program advances to its next stage, Science envisions seeding devices with living neurons that would form synaptic links with a patient’s cortex, enabling two-way communication. Potential near-term clinical uses include delivering low-level stimulation to help injured brain or spinal tissue recover and continuous monitoring to detect seizures in people with tumors. Company advisers also speculate the technology might one day supplement or protect circuits affected by degenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease by combining transplanted cells with embedded electronics — a strategy that would merge cell-replacement and stimulation approaches in a single implant.

Still, the path to broad human use remains long. Günel and company officials describe a timeline measured in years; they say it would be optimistic to expect human trials with the cell-containing, full biohybrid system to start before 2027. Regulators, independent scientists and ethics committees will all play decisive roles in determining whether the devices move beyond early safety studies into larger clinical testing.