Helping hands
WPI GETS GRANT TO CREATE NEW PROSTHETIC LIMBS
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
By Lisa Eckelbecker TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
W. Grant McGimpsey, director of the WPI Bioengineering Institute, left, talks with U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern during a tour of the Center for
Neuroprosthetics.
WORCESTER — The prosthetic limbs of the future may look and function
nothing like the prosthetics of today, if scientists at Worcester Polytechnic
Institute and their colleagues across the country have their way.
Limbs that act like real arms and legs and that fit with the body, all the way
down to the electrical signals sent by the brain, are among the long-term goals
before WPI's Center for Neuroprosthetics and BioMEMS, which yesterday
reported it had received a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of
Defense.
WPI Associate Professor Christopher Lambert talks about
his group's research at the WPI Center for Neuroprosthetics.
(T&G Staff Photos/PAUL KAPTEYN)
The money will go to support about 30 researchers at the WPI Bioengineering
Institute who are working on ways to grow new tissue and develop connections
to link a prosthetic limb to the body's nervous system.
U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, who visited WPI yesterday to tour the neuroprosthetic laboratories and discuss the grant,
called the research some of the most exciting he has ever seen and said it might spawn demand for medical, manufacturing and other
workers.
“This is unbelievable, what's happening here,” Mr. McGovern said. “Not only can we help improve peoples' lives who've lost limbs,
but we can create jobs.”
With wars under way in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nation's military is confronting a wave of amputees. Military personnel underwent
1,224 amputations through mid-2009, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. Wounded warriors have also
faced amputation at a higher rate than in past conflicts, according to a calculation done by the Congressional Research Service.
Yet the market for advanced prosthetics goes beyond soldiers.
Diabetics undergo more than 80,000 lower limb amputations annually in the United States, and peripheral vascular disease leads to
thousands more amputations.
Government costs also extend beyond wounded soldiers.
Medicare, the nation's health plan for seniors, approved $54 million in payments in the 2008 fiscal year for basic lower limb
prosthetics.
WPI has sought out contacts with commercial prosthetics developers, but government support of the research is crucial, according to
W. Grant McGimpsey, director of the WPI Bioengineering Institute. Once developed, the technologies could be applied to additional
markets, he said.
“The interest in this is going to be an interest in the underlying technologies rather than this (amputee) market,” he said.
The field of advanced prosthetics still has many barriers to hurdle.
Researchers at institutions such as the University of Utah, the University of Washington and Northwestern University are tackling
problems such as how to speed healing, what kinds of surfaces would work best on an implanted device, how to engineer an implant
so the body will not attack it or render it useless, how nerves from an amputated limb might be transplanted into the body and what
kinds of laboratory animals make good models for studying new technologies and techniques.
Some of the research could have impacts in as little as three years in the development of diagnostic tools that might help doctors
quickly and more accurately assess the viability of injured tissues, according to Christopher R. Lambert, a research associate professor
at the WPI Bioengineering Institute.
“The ability to do that in real time would be fantastic,” he said. “It would improve outcomes for blast injury victims.”
WPI Associate Professor Christopher Lambert talks about
his group's research at the WPI Center for
Neuroprosthetics. (T&G Staff Photos/PAUL KAPTEYN)