Pulliam, Christopher, PhD

As the FES Center’s primary contact for industrial relations, my objective is to strengthen and forge new relationships with groups outside the center to build the Center’s visibility and impact.

I hope to connect investigators who are leading research here at the Center with industry researchers and organizations working in adjacent spaces, where the combination of these efforts may result in a unique value. I’m also working to find opportunities to combine the innovations we’re leading here at the Center with those of our partners. In this way, we may be able to develop new technologies and approaches that are impactful for the Center, for our partners and for the larger medical community.

Much of the mission of the Center is to bring technologies to those who need it, and this work is accomplished through partnerships with existing industry partners or through formation of new companies.

By partnering early with prospective partners, the Center can de-risk the technology transfer process by designing solutions to regulatory, documentation, and reimbursement hurdles. Tackling these problems early in the development cycle greatly facilitates the adoption of university technology by new or established industry partners.

In addition, the FES Center can leverage years of device expertise and neural technology research to de-risk early stage research for companies. Differing from a traditional sponsored project, these types of explorations combine industrial development, academic research, and federal funding opportunities to answer specific questions relevant to both the academic investigator and the industrial partner. These types of collaborations have been enormously successful and represent a new model for rapid advances and transfer of academic research.

INVESTIGATOR BIOGRAPHY

Christopher Pulliam, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University and holds an appointment as a Biomedical Engineer at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. His main research interest is in the development of new approaches to treating and assessing functional impairments resulting from neurological disease or injury.

Before transitioning to academia, Dr. Pulliam established a track record of guiding high-impact projects from conception to commercialization in the medical device industry — in both small startups (Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies) and large global companies (Medtronic Neuromodulation). He contributed to the inception of Class II and III medical devices and is named inventor on more than 25 patents issued in the United States.

Dr. Pulliam was born in Baton Rouge, LA, and earned his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.