Category: Grant

New Funding for “LUKE Arm” Neuroprosthesis

The Utah NeuroRobotics Lab was awarded a $300,000 contract from the company Biologic Input Output Systems (BIOS) to continue the lab's ongoing Investigational Device Exception Early Feasibility Study for the "LUKE Arm" neuroprosthesis. The lab is now actively recruiting one transradial amputee to enroll in the ongoing clinical trial. This individual will have Utah Slanted Electrode Arrays (USEAs) and intramuscular electromyographic recording leads (iEMGs) implanted into their residual arm nerves and muscles. This neural interface will then allow them to control a multiarticulate bionic arm simply with their thoughts, as well as receive a sense of touch coming back from the bionic arm. This upcoming patient will be the 9th patient in this clinical trial, and will receive the latest version of the technology, featuring new software that enhances dexterity and ease of use. Most importantly, this patient will be the first patient to take the device home and use it in a completely unsupervised manner. In the past, patients had to visit the lab to use the bionic arm under supervision of PhD-level engineers. Now, thanks to advancements made by the University of Utah and BIOS patients will be able to take home the device for use in their own activities of daily living.

This next phase of the project marks an exciting step towards the commercialization and real-world implementation of an advanced neuroprosthesis. This project also represents an ongoing academic-industry partnership between the University of Utah and BIOS. BIOS is a startup company associated with the University of Utah. In 2022, BIOS executed a software licensing agreement with the University of Utah for the technology behind the neuroprosthesis, which now serves as the core intellectual property for BIOS's flagship neuroprosthesis product. Dr. George, director of the Utah NeuroRobotics Lab, also serves as the Chief Scientist for BIOS. The USEAs used in this project are also manufactured by Blackrock Neurotech, another University of Utah associated company.

Lab Spinoff Raises $350K

University of Utah affiliated startup, Biologic Input Output Systems (BIOS), recently received a $350,000 investment from the Utah Innovation Fund. BIOS is a neurotech startup working to commercialize a peripheral nerve interface for prosthetics and beyond. The technology behind BIOS was developed at the Utah NeuroRobotics Lab, and Dr. George serves as chief scientist for BIOS to support their technology development. The Utah Innovation Fund supports early-stage startups in Utah by providing capital, mentorship, and resources to drive innovation and growth. Focused on fostering entrepreneurship, the fund aims to accelerate the development of groundbreaking technologies and ideas, strengthening the local economy and advancing Utah’s position as a hub for innovation.

Read more about the investment and company here: https://www.utahbusiness.com/why-utah-innovation-fund-invested-in-bios/

New Tech Transfer Grant

The Utah NeuroRobotics Lab was recently awarded awarded a $100,000 grant to continue the development of our wearable haptic feedback device! This is a technology commercialization grant to help advance our prototype into a wearable wrist-worn formfactor like a smartwatch. The technology uses transcutaneous nerve stimulation at the wrist to create haptic sensations on the fingertips. This technology is unique in that it creates a sensation on your hand and fingers without obstructing your hands. This is a step forward beyond existing virtual-reality interfaces (i.e., instrumented gloves or handheld controllers) prohibit simultaneous interactions with physical and digital objects. Our technology also offers an advantage over existing AR interfaces that neglect sensory feedback altogether or require the user to remap digital sensations on the hand to physical sensations felt elsewhere on the body (e.g., a vibrating wristband).

Dr. George thanked his large interdisciplinary team who helped make this grant happen. This includes:

  • Abby Citterman and Marta Iversen who helped write the grant.
  • Marshall Trout and Chandler Welch who developed and validated the wrist-worn circuitry that will serve as a basis for our smartwatch prototype.
  • Abby Harrison and Troy Tully who helped establish and validate the VR application of this technology.
  • As well as Kaysen Hansen, Ava Folkman, and Rebecca Urban who have been pushing our scientific knowledge of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation at the wrist.

Utah Neurorobotics Lab members win proposal grant at the RAC Grand Challenge

The Utah Neurorobotics Lab won a $100,000 grant from the Remote and Austere Conditions Grand Challenge, presented by the University of Utah’s Office of the Vice President for Research. The RAC Grand Challenge was created “as a pioneering initiative to stimulate and support innovative research focused on developing new techniques, technologies, and methods for remote and austere environments”, intending to “drive advancements and societal impact that address the unique challenges of these environments.”

Our proposal was titled “FrostByte: A Wearable Temperature Monitoring System for Frostbite Prevention and Research.” The project leverages a prototype wearable glove developed by our lab to monitor and prevent frostbite. The current device consists of a simple glove liner with a few thermocouples wired to a heating element to activate in case of extreme temperatures, but this simple device could have a big impact on clinical care. 1 in 10 people who live in cold climates get frostbite at some point in their life, and that number gets as high as 1 in 3 for those who recreate in the cold. 30% of frostbite cases result in amputation.

Under principal investigators Jacob George, PhD, and Scott McIntosh, MD, a team of MDs and PhDs were assisted by lab members Connor Olsen and Sophie Nelson. Congratulations team!

You can find more information on the RAC Grand Challenge here.

3 Pilot Grants Funded by Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Our lab is proud to announce the funding of three new pilot grants authored by three of our Ph.D. students. Congratulations to Monika Buczak (Biomedical Engineering), Marshall Trout (Electrical Engineering), and Connor Olsen (Electrical Engineering). Each has been awarded ~$5,000 by the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation to help fund their research!

Monika’s Grant, entitled “Electronic Grip Gauge (EGG): Disentangling Sensory and Motor Deficits of Fine Hand Function,” will fund the development and translation of the EGG, an assessment tool to measure grip and dexterity. The EGG is currently used to assess the dexterity of prosthetic control in a research setting, and Monika hopes to translate the egg into the clinical sphere to assist with the rehabilitation of individuals who have suffered strokes.

Marshall’s Grant, entitled “Assisting and Rehabilitating Hand Dexterity for Stroke Patients through Proximal Nerve Stimulation,” uses functional electrical stimulation to reanimate stroke patients’ paretic limbs to assist in rehabilitation. Marshall’s work will operate similarly to mirror therapy but by actually moving the patient’s paretic limb through electrical stimulation of the proximal nerve.

Connor’s Grant, entitled “Enhancing Patient Independence with Hand Gesture Control of Inpatient Smart Rooms,” will fund the development of an EMG controller that will allow individuals to control their smart home environment using hand gestures. Connor seeks to enable the patients at the Nielsen Rehabilitation Hospital to use this control method in their hospital rooms to increase independence and promote recovery.

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Connor Olsen Awarded Grant to Enhance Research Mentorship

Connor Olsen has been awarded the Enhancing Research Mentorship Grant from the Office of Undergraduate Research at the University of Utah. This is the first (pilot) year this grant has been awarded and aims to improve the mentorship experience between mentees and mentors in a research setting and improve the diversity among researchers.

Connor’s grant, titled “Skill-Focused Research Training Session for New Undergraduate Researchers,” seeks to improve the process of bringing undergraduates into the research sphere by focusing less on what tasks they can perform and instead on developing critical research skills, such as performing literary analyses, developing research questions, and analyzing experimental data. He hopes to use this grant to promote change away from undergraduates being assigned menial tasks in a research lab and build them into future researchers who can act independently and think critically.

New Grant for Gesture Control of Smart Homes

The Utah NeuroRobotics Lab was just awarded $200,000 to develop a wearable device capable of translating intended movements of the hand into control of smart-home devices. The funding comes from the Veterans Affairs "Specially Adapted Housing Assistive Technology" program. The long-term vision of this project is to allow individuals with neuromuscular impairments the ability to seamlessly interact with their home environment, despite physical limitations and/or impaired speech. The wearable device, in the form of a wrist watch, will use electromyography and various embedded sensors to determine a users intended hand gestures, even if they are weak or unable to physical move their hand. This fast-paced 1-year project will run from June 2022 to June 2023 and result in a functional prototype and leverage plan for future commercialization of the assistive technology.

You can learn more about the grant here: https://www.ece.utah.edu/2022/08/25/george-receives-200k-grant/

New Grant from Utah PIVOT Center!

The Utah NeuroRobotics Lab was recently awarded a $96,500 grant from the University of Utah's Partners for Innovation, Ventures, Outreach and Technology (PIVOT) Center. This grant will help out lab bridge the funding gap between research and commercialization by providing support for technology development, proof of concept, and to prepare the innovation for additional investment by entrepreneurs, investors, and potential licensees. Specifically, the objective of this grant is to demonstrate the feasibility of expanding our brain-computer interface technology into the broader Internet-of-Things market. We will transition our technology from a rough prototype used to control prostheses/orthoses into a sleek product resembling a smartwatch and capable of controlling numerous smart-home devices simply by thought. You can learn more here.

New Grant from Facebook Reality Labs!

The Utah NeuroRobotics Lab was recently awarded a $150,000 grant from Facebook Reality Labs to develop new inclusive neural interfaces for controlling virtual and augmented reality. We were one of six selected for funding out of 50 applications! The objective of our proposal is to develop a privacy-by-design EMG data-collection process that provides unbiased and generalizable performance across different decode algorithms and users’ physical ability levels. To maximize EMG privacy, we will place users in direct control of the data-collection process and allow them to rapidly collect data that is inclusive to their specific needs on an as-needed basis. We will also identify key aspects of training data that are critical for unbiased run-time performance in order to inform users how to maximize performance and minimize data collection. Experimental changes in the data-collection process will be validated with functional and psychological metrics while users complete activities of daily living (ADLs) in a virtual reality environment (MuJoCo HAPTIX) with different decode algorithms. Importantly, validation will be done with participants exhibiting common neuromuscular disorders to ensure that the technology is inclusive to individuals with varying physical ability levels.

You can learn more about the grant from Facebook Reality Labs and from the University of Utah Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering!

NeuroRobotics Lab Awarded NVIDIA Jetson Nanos!

Dr. George was recently awarded a grant from NVIDIA to supply Jetson Nanos for the NeuroRobotics course! A Jetson Nano is a small, powerful computer (similar to a Raspberry Pi) with an embedded GPU to run multiple neural networks in parallel for applications like image classification, object detection, segmentation, and speech processing. It's an easy-to-use platform that runs in as little as 5 watts. These new modules will allow for a variety of deployable AI models for decoding biological signals (to control bionic devices by thought) and encoding neural stimulation (to provide haptic feedback or to animate limbs). Read more about the award here.