Friday, September 26, 2008

WPI grabs $1M grant for neuroprosthetics research

By Mass High Tech Staff

Worcester Polytechnic Institute has received $1 million in federal and state grants to develop artificial limbs for eventual implant use at its Center for Neuroprosthetics.

Much of the researchers’ funding to work on neuroprosthetics-next-generation artificial limbs comes from a two-year $860,000 grant from the U.S. Army Military Amputee Research Program of the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) given to WPI’s Bioengineering Institute. The school is also lined up to receive a $150,000 grant to help advance the neuroprosthetics center’s growth and prepare for a 2009 national neuroprosthetics conference at WPI. The John Adams Innovation Institute, the economic development division of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, provided that second grant.

U.S. Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry and Congressman James McGovern have supported the appropriations to push the TATRC grant, which will address nervous system integration, control signal processing and tissue-interface between the artificial limb and the body.

The neuroprosthetic limbs will feature a fixed metal or composite post in the bone, surrounded by tissue layers, with WPI researchers studying how the tissue reacts.

Among the grant recipients are Ted Clancy, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at WPI, who will conduct studies on normal muscle production of electrical signals, and Stephen Lambert, research associate professor with BEI, who will study the connection between prosthetic limbs and the nervous system.