Category: Grant

The Utah NeuroRobotics Lab just received an additional $52,928 from Biologic Input Output Systems, Inc. to support the translational of the LUKE Arm Neuroprosthesis. This funding will support device testing and personnel to prepare for implanting a new amputee participant for a 1-year clinical trial. The next participant will take the LUKE Arm home and use it unsupervised in their day to day activities.

The Utah NeuroRobotics Lab just signed a $940K contract to investigate the benefits of a powered myoelectric upper-limb orthosis for stroke patients with hemiparesis. We will be investigating the ability of the exoskeleton device to: 1) improve upper-limb function, 2) improve quality of life, and 3) rehabilitate the impaired limb. This project is built on the PhD work started by Caleb Thomson (BME PhD), and will now be led by Leonardo Ferrisi (BME PhD) going forward, with support from Caden Hamrick (ECE PhD) as well. This project represents of the the Utah NeuroRobotics Lab's first large scale (N=40) clinical trials and will provide critical insight into how to truly transform stroke care across a large and diverse cohort of patients. This project will also involve hiring and collaborating with multiple occupational therapists, which will establish much greater connections between the lab and the therapists in the Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital, further increasing the translatability and impact of our research.

The Utah NeuroRobotics Lab was just awarded a $50,000 digital health grant to pivot our research into the mental health arena. EMG is typically recorded from the forearm to classify hand gestures/kinematics, but now we are using EMG from the wrist, in the form of a smartwatch, to predict activities of daily living. We think of this as a next-gen Fitbit: instead of tracking lower limb function, like if a person is sitting, standing, walking, falling, etc., we are tracking upper-limb function, like if a person is eating, typing, washing their hands, etc. The long-term goal is to build a map of an individual's lived space to promote healthy habits and detect anomalies. This grant will push us towards this goal by supporting a new mobile app and cloud computing infrastructure for our platform EMG technology. Our initial application seeks to help track instrumental activities of daily in patients with dementia to improve quality of life and reduce caregiver burden.

The Utah NeuroRobotics Lab received notice of award from the NSF for a new collaborative project with Dr. Mark Brinton at Elizabethtown College! This 3-year $423,768 project is focused on the development of biomimetic noninvasive electrocutaneous and transcutaneous stimulation for upper-limb amputees. The funding will also support unique training experiences between the University of Utah and Elizabethtown College (a primarily undergraduate institution in rural Pennsylvania). Dr. Brinton and his team of undergraduate researchers will join our team in Utah for the summers, and our graduate students will have opportunities to travel to Elizabethtown College in the spring/fall to teach and mentor students and explore career paths in academia. Thank you to Mark Brinton for leading this initiative and to Marshall Trout (ECE PhD student), Abby Citterman (BME BS student) and Abby Harrison (BME PhD student) for their research that served as preliminary data for this grant.

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.

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.