Go to Page: 1 2 3 4

Shortly after receiving his doctorate in biomedical engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology scientist Philip Troyk attended his first meeting on neuroprosthesis research at the headquarters of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.

He immediately became enthralled with pioneering research in NIH's Neural Prosthesis Program. Most intriguing was a project to develop a device for the blind that would restore vision by channeling electronic stimuli into the brain's visual cortex—where, normally, neural impulses from the eyes are converted into the moving images called "sight." Such a device could benefit as many as two million persons who are blind or suffer severe visual impairment.

"All of the neuroprosthesis projects that were being done at the NIH were interesting, but it was clear that a visual prosthesis that could be implanted in the brain to restore vision was the big trophy—the Holy Grail of neural-prosthesis research," Troyk says.

The year was 1983, and Troyk pledged to attend future meetings on neural-prosthesis research, immerse himself in the literature, and get acquainted with leaders in the field.

"I always had a fascination with marrying electronic technology and the human body. The possibilities stirred the imagination," says Troyk, now associate professor of biomedical engineering in IIT's Pritzker Institute of Medical Engineering.

Troyk's imagination was put to a big test in 1996, when events moved IIT rapidly—and unexpectedly—from the sidelines into the vanguard of visual-prosthesis research. Early in the year, IIT was awarded a $1 million NIH contract to design and fabricate an implantable visual prosthetic device for the blind, based on electronic stimulation of the visual cortex. However, several months into the project, NIH officials announced plans to abandon the human research, citing as one of the reasons its inability to guarantee human volunteers lifelong maintenance of visual-prosthesis implants.

Initially, the decision was a devastating blow for those whose careers had been devoted to advancing the research and who now felt the once unimaginable was within reach. In addition, IIT researchers had already made major progress under its NIH contract. Although NIH would honor the IIT contract, there were no plans to use the implantable device. "It appeared that we now had a solution in search of a problem," Troyk thought.

Soon, some NIH researchers began pitching the visual prosthesis project elsewhere, hoping that the NIH might continue funding under the auspices of a different organization. Troyk was dedicated to reviving the work, and quickly assembled a 20-member team of distinguished biological, behavioral and visual scientists from the University of Chicago, an international leader in psychophysical research and neurosurgery; Huntington Medical Research Institute, Pasadena, Calif., which pioneered the development and safety testing of electrode arrays used in intra-cortical visual prosthesis research; and EIC Laboratories, a Newton, Massachusetts-based leader in advanced electrode technology. In addition, Troyk enlisted two retired NIH scientists, including the neurosurgeon who performed the landmark brain implant of a visual prosthesis at NIH, as well as an NIH expert in electrode design.

Go to Page: 1 2 3 4