Autumn
Edition 2014
BIONIC
CONNECTIONS
From a bionic ear to a bionic era
This issue
page 1
Bionics Institute work named among
Australia’s top 50 philanthropic gifts
page 2
Director’s Message
In the News
page 3
Lions Hearing Research Fellowship
brings Natalie home
Australia hosts International Medical
Bionics Conference
page 4
Bionics Institute
work named
among
Australia’s top
50 philanthropic
gifts
A great gift is the vision
that understands what can
be achieved by taking small
steps and encouraging others
to follow.
Australia’s ‘Top 50 Philanthropic Gifts’ were
announced in October 2013 in the inaugural
celebration of our nation’s most significant
philanthropic achievements. Celebrating the
‘Top 50’ recognises the incredible impact that
philanthropy has in our society.
Claiming a spot in the ‘Top 50’ was the
Bionic Eye Feasibility Study (2005-2007) that
was supported by funds from The Ian Potter
Foundation and the John T Reid Charitable
Trusts to the (then) Bionic Ear Institute.
This allowed the critical proof of concept
research and groundwork to attract $42 million
in government funding to bring the project
to where it is today. In a clear demonstration
of what seed funding from philanthropy can
achieve, Institute researchers alongside their
Bionic Vision Australia colleagues successfully
performed the first implantations of the
prototype bionic eye in three patients in 2012.
Professor Rob Shepherd, Director of the
Bionics Institute, led the team in designing,
building and testing this early prototype
device to ensure its safety and efficacy for
human implantation.
“Without the seed funding from The
Ian Potter Foundation and the John T Reid
Charitable Trusts none of this would have been
possible. It was their commitment at an early
critical stage that helped us demonstrate to
the Federal Government that the development
of a bionic eye in Australia was achievable”,
said Professor Rob Shepherd.
Also voted as one of the ‘Top 10’ was a
grant (in 1978) from The Clive and Vera
Ramaciotti Foundations awarded to Professor
Graeme Clark (Director Emeritus and founder
of the Bionic Ear Institute). The grant assisted
Professor Clark and his team at a critical point
in their pioneering research of the world
leading bionic ear.
The Top 50 philanthropic gifts resulted from
a public nomination process and spanned
achievements from the 1800’s until today.
Bionic ear pioneer receives
prestigious US award
‘Serendipity’ is the name of an
amazing garden
page 5
An implantable device for epilepsy
seizure diagnosis
An exchange of ideas and the
potential for collaboration
page 6
Think ahead is a new permanent
exhibit at Scienceworks featuring
advances in science and technology
Shout for Good
www.bionicsinstitute.org
Director’s Message
In the News
Cochlear program to give deaf children best start
to life
Herald Sun, September 11 2013, Pages 1 and 11. ‘The sound of miracles’
was a page 1 article that was followed through on page 11 and discussed
a new cochlear implant programming technique being researched for use
with children.
It’s a sick joke
Herald Sun, September 1, 2013, pages 10 and 11. This article outlined,
through a double page spread, the lack of funding coming to the
Institute from government in support of our neurobionics program. There
were three case-studies of people who would directly benefit from brain
stimulation devices.
Delight in bionic sight
The Age, September 16 2013, online. An update of bionic vision progress
showed how the patients with the implanted device are now seeing
recognisable shapes and different shades of light and dark to help them
navigate. The same article appeared in The Brisbane Times and The
Canberra Times.
Dear Friends,
To achieve a great feat you sometimes need to take a great risk.
The Bionics Institute has twice been the beneficiary of support from
people who believed that without risk you cannot move forward.
Celebrated through Australia’s ‘Top 50 Philanthropic Gifts’ was the
commitment of three foundations that understood the Institute’s
vision to develop the technology that led to the bionic ear and also
Australia’s first prototype bionic eye.
The Institute continues to move forward and we are in a similar
position as before; we have the concepts for brain stimulation
devices that will bring relief from the symptoms of intractable
neurological and psychiatric disorders but we need the philanthropic
and government support to bring these medical devices to reality.
The Institute has many loyal and generous supporters, but over the
next five years we need to raise $25 million to bring five new devices
to clinical trial, and this can’t be achieved through our donors alone.
We are calling on government to assist as they have done before.
The benefits to Australians through the relief of otherwise
intractable conditions, as well as job creation and securing the
education of our brightest students, are unquestionable.
Just before the end-of-year break the ‘Think ahead’ exhibition
opened at Scienceworks. Think Ahead is the museum’s latest
permanent exhibition and features a glimpse of what the future
may look like and how it will affect our daily lives. The exhibition
features bionic ear and bionic eye technologies and has the capacity
to include our neurobionics technologies in the future. The exhibition
was a major undertaking for Scienceworks and presented a great
opportunity for the Institute to participate. Over the next eight years
the museum expects 4 million visitors to go through the exhibit.
On a personal note I would like to congratulate Professor Colette
McKay who received a prestigious and exceptionally competitive
senior veski Innovation Fellowship last year. This three-year
Victorian government fellowship will support her research
into developing an objective and automated cochlear implant
programming system to help deaf children obtain optimal hearing
from their cochlear implant.
I hope you enjoy this Autumn issue of Bionic Connections.
Kind regards,
Professor Rob Shepherd
Bionics Institute Director
2
Bionic Connections | Autumn 2014
Nano-medicine to treat heard-to-reach deafness
Herald Sun, November 21 2013. An article appeared online and in the
printed version of the Herald Sun, highlighting the development of
nanoparticles that have the potential to protect the sensory cells of
the inner ear (hair cells) from further degeneration when implanted
with a bionic ear.
Cultural Shift Required: Improving the economic
impact of Australian research
In the current issue of Australian Quarterly (VOL 85, Jan-Mar 2014)
Professor Rob Shepherd argues, “It is vital that Australia is an active
player in developing efficient pathways to commercialise research,
particularly as our mining boom slows and our traditional manufacturing
sector shrinks.” He outlines a number of ways Australia might improve
its performance in research commercialisation.
Links to these articles can be found in the News section of the Bionics
Institute website at www.bionicsinstitute.org
Lions Hearing
Research Fellowship
brings Natalie home
Dr Natalie Rickard’s research
has come full circle. She
completed her PhD with
Professor Rob Shepherd in
1999 and after various research,
audiology and teaching positions
in Australia and overseas has
returned to the Institute and
cochlear implant research as
the Lions International Hearing
Research Fellow.
For 25 years the support of the Victorian
Lions Foundation has been vital in fostering
bright young scientists whose focus has been
on improving the technology that drives
cochlear implants and hearing devices.
Since the Institute’s inception, ten Lions
Hearing Research Fellows have been appointed
and their work has ranged from improving the
chip that drives the bionic ear, to training older
children with the device how to communicate.
Recently the Fellows have investigated how the
brain changes as a result of the introduction
of the bionic ear and what can be done
to improve the implant’s effectiveness in
conveying music. None of this work would
have been possible without Lions’ support.
Natalie returned to Melbourne in 2013 to
take up this fellowship within the Institute’s
Bionic Hearing team. She started her research
career at the University of Melbourne and with
Professor Rob Shepherd as her PhD supervisor
investigated the effects of deafness and
electrical stimulation via a cochlear implant
on the auditory system. In recent years her
research has taken a more clinical direction,
and her projects have centred on the sound
processing capacity of the brain in schoolaged children.
“My clinical experiences as an audiologist
working with children with severe listening
difficulties have influenced how I approach
research. My objective is always to feed
the science back into the clinic to benefit
patients. I hope my research will improve
our understanding of the nature of sound
processing deficits in children and allow us to
develop tools for diagnosing and managing
these difficulties,” Natalie said.
Natalie will be working on two new projects
at the Institute with Professor Colette McKay
who also returned in 2013 to take up a
Victorian government senior veski innovation
fellowship.
Their work aims to develop a new clinical
tool for cochlear implant recipients using
optical topography. Optical topography
provides images of brain activity, and is
portable and inexpensive compared to other
imaging techniques. This method has a number
of potential uses and benefits including:
prognosis of clinical outcomes in cochlear
implant users; diagnosis of the reasons for poor
outcomes in some existing users; and tracking
the effectiveness of therapies or training.
In a related project, Natalie also aims
to determine the degree to which intrinsic
differences in an individual’s language skills
and reasoning predict the speech perception
abilities of hearing impaired adults. Such
information provides a platform for the
development of deficit-specific rehabilitation
strategies and, ultimately, improved clinical
outcomes for those with hearing impairment.
Dr Natalie Rickard
Australia hosts
International Medical
Bionics Conference
Since 2008 the Bionics Institute
has hosted three International
Medical Bionics Conferences.
They have brought together
scientific, engineering and
medical researchers who are
all focussed on advancing the
development of life-changing
bionic devices.
The third International Medical Bionics
Conference with the theme “Engineering
solutions for neural disorders” was held from
November 17-20, 2013, at Phillip Island,
Victoria with great success. The conference
attracted scientists, engineers, clinicians and
industry representatives from across the globe
and provided a forum for information exchange,
networking and the mentoring of students.
The ultimate objective of this conference
is to contribute to the development of new,
safe and effective devices for a wide range
of clinical applications. Over the three days
sessions were dedicated to bionic hearing,
bionic vision, and brain stimulation for the
treatment of neurological and psychiatric
disorders, as well as the effective operation
of artificial limbs through brain interfaces.
Professor Rob Shepherd, Chairman of
the Medical Bionics Conference Organising
Committee said, “We are delighted to be able
to host the International Medical Bionics
Delegates at the 2013 Medical Bionics Conference.
Conference as it has a genuinely collaborative
and international atmosphere. It is great to see
researchers enthusiastically sharing ideas about
what is and isn’t working for them and seeking
advice from others in the field.”
“The beginnings of excellent international
collaborations are often established during the
conference”, Professor Shepherd said.
Bionic Connections | Autumn 2014
3
Bionic ear pioneer
receives prestigious
US award
Professor Graeme Clark AC,
pioneer of the bionic ear in
Australia and founder of the
(then) Bionic Ear Institute,
has been recognised with two
others for his contributions to
the development of the modern
cochlear implant with a major
US clinical research award.
The Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research
Award honours investigators who have improved
the clinical treatment of patients, and this year
it acknowledged the work of three individuals
– Graeme Clark (Australia), Ingeborg Hochmair
(Austria) and Blake Wilson (USA) – for their
pivotal role in the development and success of
today’s multi-channel cochlear implant.
During the 1960s there had been attempts
to activate the cochlea in profoundly deaf
individuals using a single implanted electrode,
but it was the independent research teams
led by Graeme Clark in Australia and Ingeborg
Hochmair in Austria during the 1970s that
realised that a multiple electrode device
that could activate different points along
the cochlea (and therefore evoke different
frequencies) would be required for speech
perception. Multichannel prototypes from both
research groups were implanted within eight
months of each other in the late 1970s.
The Lasker Awards are among the most
respected science prizes in the world. Since
1945, the Awards Program has recognized the
contributions of scientists, physicians and
public servants who have made major advances
in the understanding, diagnosis, treatment,
cure, and prevention of human disease.
For more information about the award,
including Graeme’s video interview visit the
Lasker Foundation website.
‘Serendipity’ is the
name of an amazing
garden that has been
the work of one of
the Bionics Institute’s
volunteers for the
past seven years.
Suzanne de Pelsenaire, a bionic
ear recipient, opened her
beautiful garden to the public
over a weekend in late October
to raise funds for the Institute’s
research. Suzanne potted
and transplanted more than
1,500 plants in her move from
Healesville to Koo Wee Rup in
Victoria about seven years ago.
Graeme Clark (right) and Rod Saunders, the first
recipient of the Australian cochlear implant, in 1978.
In her support of the Bionics Institute,
Suzanne recently opened her lovely garden
to the public. By charging a small fee for
entry and selling a number of plants and craft
objects Suzanne raised in excess of $1,300 for
research into bionic hearing and chronic pain
at the Institute.
Suzanne said, “I wanted to do something to
help the Institute when I read in the Herald
Sun recently that the researchers wanted
to develop a chronic pain device and other
implants to help those with devastating
nervous system and psychiatric conditions.
I was greatly concerned that this amazing
research was not getting the funding it needed
and deserved”.
An event such as Suzanne’s can raise
awareness and generate much needed support
for research that will change the lives of many
people. If you would like to host a fundraising
event for the Institute please contact our
Public Relations and Fundraising office
(rhilkes@bionicsinstitute.org).
Bionic Connections | Autumn 2014
4
Associate Professor Chris Williams
An implantable device for epilepsy
seizure diagnosis
Blackouts are a common complaint affecting up to
50 percent of people at some point of life. They
may be due to seizures, heart irregularities or other
causes. Definite diagnosis is often difficult because
these events are typically infrequent, perhaps weeks
or months apart.
At the present time the problem of diagnosing the cause of infrequent
blackouts remains unsolved, and leaves patients in a state of limbo. If the
clinician suspects that the blackouts may be caused by epilepsy, then the
two diagnostic options currently available are unsatisfactory. One option is
conventional EEG recordings; however it is not possible to fix electrodes to
the scalp for prolonged periods and inpatient monitoring is very expensive.
The second option, namely recording directly from the brain, is feasible and
effective but highly invasive and therefore carries a level of risk.
These options are also unsatisfactory for another major problem faced by
clinicians - the sometimes difficult management of drug therapies to relieve
seizures and the reliance on subjective patient diaries. In some patients,
ongoing management is problematic and getting the drug regime correct is
a trial and error process.
To address these issues a means of continuously recording brain activity
over long periods is required.
Bionics Institute researchers led by Associate Professor Chris Williams,
with colleagues at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and the University
of Melbourne, are planning to develop a novel approach to solve these
problems.
“Both groups of patients - those with undiagnosed blackouts and those
having difficulties in getting their epilepsy drug dosages right - face
ongoing and long-term stress, risks and uncertainty when carrying out
their normal daily activities. We aim to develop a new implant to provide
a minimally invasive and objective way of monitoring seizures over long
periods of time. This will have a profound impact on the lives of individuals
and their carers, as well as the clinicians who manage their treatment,”
Chris said.
Chris’s approach is to place a small, thin and flexible implant under the
scalp that will allow the long-term monitoring of brain activity. This will
require minimal surgery and risk, in much the same way as implantable
monitors are currently used to diagnose heart abnormalities.
In the next few years Chris and his team aim to carry out the critical
pre-clinical studies to test that the sub-scalp system is safe and effective.
The study will allow refinement of a prototype implant and its associated
recording hardware and software, determine its best placement and
stability, as well as develop specialised surgical instruments for its
implantation. The results will provide the crucial groundwork for a future
clinical trial. The final device will also have the capability of improving
patient safety through remote monitoring with Chris envisaging a ‘callhome’ function to alert carers of a seizure.
Chris Williams has a strong track record in translating his research into
improved health outcomes. In recent years he has played a major role
in the design, safety and efficacy studies of the bionic eye prototype
implanted in three patients in 2012. Prior to joining the Institute in
2008 he researched and developed seizure and brain injury monitors and
therapies that are now in widespread use in neonatal intensive care units
around the world.
An exchange of ideas and the
potential for collaboration
Professor Rob Shepherd was recently invited to speak
about deep brain stimulation and the potential for
collaborative links between Australian and Indian
researchers during a week’s long tour of New Delhi,
Bangalore and Puducherry.
The Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and
Research and the Bionics Institute held talks to discuss the potential
collaboration between the two Institutes to develop student exchanges
and research.
Professor Shepherd said, “There are a number of options for Indian
students in Australia. Many people are not aware of the kind of
research that takes place in Australia. My visit to India was to showcase
to the various institutions the type of cutting edge research that is
being undertaken”.
“I strongly believe there is great potential for scientific collaboration and
student exchange between the two countries”, Professor Shepherd said.
5
Bionic Connections | Autumn 2014
Professor Rob Shepherd met with ophthalmology students at the Jawaharlal
Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research in Puducherry, India
in December 2013.
Shout for Good
Thanks to the generosity of The Calvert-Jones
Foundation, the Bionics Institute has joined
‘Shout for Good’, an online and mobile fundraising
site. ‘Shout’ is a donation platform designed to
raise funds for organisations in a fun, simple and
social way.
Think ahead is a new permanent
exhibit at Scienceworks
featuring advances in science
and technology.
‘Shout’ derived its name from the common term of ‘shouting’ someone.
So rather than shouting someone a coffee or a beer you can shout the
Bionics Institute a small donation, equivalent to the cup of coffee or a
movie ticket. The hope is that a lot can happen from a little.
Visit their website (shoutforgood.com) or search for ‘Shout for Good’ in
your App Store to download the free app to your smart phone or tablet
device to start changing the world one shout at a time.
Amongst the 200 museum objects and interactive
displays are the prototype bionic eye, and early
and current bionic ears.
The Think Ahead exhibit opened at Scienceworks in December 2013
- it portrays innovative technologies with interactive experiences
across ten themes including medicine and health, communication, and
music and sound.
The exhibition was a major undertaking for Scienceworks and the
Institute was delighted to be given the opportunity to participate
and contribute. The exhibition includes a showcase that features the
technological evolution of the bionic ear since the 1970s, as well as a
bionic eye prototype manufactured at the Institute in 2012 which is
displayed within a transparent model of the human head.
The Museum envisages that the exhibit will evolve as new
technologies become available so in the future we hope to contribute
further by donating a deep brain stimulation device prototype to the
‘bionics’ showcase.
The Scienceworks website has more details about the exhibit and
features a video of Professor Rob Shepherd’s video talking about
future medicine.
Museums Victoria anticipates that over the next eight years, which
is the duration of the exhibit, approximately 4 million visitors will go
through Scienceworks.
First experimental bionic ear device
from the 1970s
New generation cochlear implant
Donor List
The Institute would like to thank the following individuals, organisations
and foundations that have contributed over $200 since October 2013.
Mr & Mrs Frank Rinaldi
Mr John Houlihan
Dr V A Nicolas
Mr & Mrs A & N Robinson
Mr & Mrs B & S Cooper
Mr V J Bertram
Mr Ronald Ritchie
Mrs E P Wilson
Mr & Mrs L & S Athan
Miss Dorothy Brennan
Ms Julie Ann Nicholson
Mr Graham Lester
Mr & Mrs Blair
Mr Frederick Ebbeck
Mr Norman Dalton
Mr Don McDonald
Ms Natasha Morley
Miss J Morgan
Mr Stephen Wargula
Mrs Inez Glanger
Ms Olive Hamilton
Mr Peter Gover
Mr Hurtle Blake
Glenvale School Bairnsdale
Rotary Club of Moreland
Mrs R Heymanson
Ms Val Gallahawk
The Calvert-Jones Foundation
Mrs Yvonne Sullivan
Mrs J M Cassell
Mr Ronald McKinnon
Mrs Pauline Powell OAM
Mr and Mrs N Weel
Mr Gordon Leslie
Mr and Mrs Robert &
Beverley Squire
Mrs Meg Bentley
Mr & Mrs A Gardner
Ms Suzanne de Pelsenaire
Baden Powell Lodge
Toccolan Club Ltd
The Pearson Charitable Fund
Mr Robert Albert AO RFD RD
Mr Baillieu Myer AC
The Bernard & Mary Euhus
Charitable Trust
For editorial enquiries or
to receive our eNewsletter,
please contact Robert Hilkes:
rhilkes@bionicsinstitute.org
or (03) 9667 7507.
Articles and photographs in this
publication are the sole property
of the Bionics Institute of Australia
and may not be reproduced without
written permission. Copyright ©2014.
Proudly supported by Woodards
Real Estate www.woodards.com.au
Bionic Connections | Autumn 2014
6