When potentially game-changing medical discoveries don’t fit easily into a standard business model, they can languish in a netherworld of limbo known as the Valley of Death. The term refers to the gap between a drug or medical device that holds promise for patients and the resources required to bring it to market. Recognizing their…
Six years ago, a spinal cord injury suffered in a motorcycle crash left Scott Fessler without use of his arms or legs. An innovative neuroprosthetic device, however, has helped him regain control in his hand. “It’s monumental to be able to just pick up your own fork and eat by yourself, to hold your own…
Bob Veillette will never move again. But that does not mean he will never again grab a cup of coffee. The technology that may allow him to do that, called Brain Computer Interface or BCI, produces results of an almost Biblical level: it can allow the deaf to hear, the blind to see and the…
Bob Veillette was alert. A thick ribbon of gauze coiled around his shaved head. Underneath the bandages lay the teapot-like spout that researchers hope would be the channel that would capture Veillette’s neural signals and allow him to move a cursor across a computer screen just by imagining it. As Veillette, former managing editor of…