New Grant for Neural Prosthetic Visionary

S

ince the 1990s Philip Troyk, associate dean of Armour College of Engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and professor at Stuart School of Business, has been working to restore vision to sight-impaired individuals. This year the National Institutes of Health awarded Illinois Tech and six partner institutions a five-year, $11.8 million grant for an early feasibility clinical trial of a visual device that bypasses the retina and optic nerves, instead connecting directly to the visual cortex of the brain. Troyk is principal investigator of the project, which will feature five human volunteers into whom the system will be surgically implanted at the University of Chicago. The outcome of the trial will be the evaluation of the first intra-cortical visual prosthesis system using novel implantable wireless stimulators. —Marcia Faye