Medical Bionics: engineering solutions for damaged nerves
R. K. Shepherd Bionics Institute & University of Melbourne, 384-388 Albert St east Melbourne 3002
Medical bionics devices electrically stimulate excitable tissue, including nerve and muscle, to provide therapeutic intervention for a large variety of maladies. Examples include the cardiac pacemaker to assist heart pacing, the cochlear implant for hearing disorders, deep brain stimulation to relieve symptoms in a variety of neurological diseases including Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor and obsessive compulsive disorder, and stimulation devices to relieve drug resistant neuropathic pain. The field is large and undergoing rapid growth world-wide. Australia has played a significant role in the development of medical bionics, including pioneering work in the development of implantable cardiac pacemakers, the development of hermetic sealing technologies to protect implantable electronics from the corrosive environment of the body, and the development of the first FDA approved multichannel cochlear implant. More recently we have embarked - with colleagues from Bionic Vision Australia - on a program to develop a retinal prosthesis for patients that suffer from retinitis pigmentosa. I will provide an overview of the development of the medical bionics industry in Australia with an emphasis on the importance of high quality multidisciplinary research and excellent biomedical engineering – both features of the Australian research environment. In the final section of my talk I will provide a brief overview of new medical bionics applications, many of which will be clinically and commercially viable within the next decade. I will also briefly summarise our drug delivery research using cell-based and nanotechnology approaches in combination with neural prostheses.
Biography
ROBERT SHEPHERD PHD QUALIFICATIONS – DEGREE AND YEAR OF AWARD Bachelor of Science (Physics), Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria – 1977 Diploma of Education, Hawthorn State College, Melbourne Victoria – 1977 Doctor of Philosophy, University of Melbourne, Victoria - 1987
CURRENT APPOINTMENTS Director, The Bionics Institute of Australia since 2006 Head of Medical Bionics Department, University of Melbourne since 2011
DESCRIPTION OF EXPERTISE Prof Shepherd has an international reputation as an expert in the field of safety and efficacy of neural prostheses using both in vitro and in vivo research techniques. He was part of Graeme Clark’s original cochlear implant team and has 35 years of experience working in the field of medical bionics. He led the preclinical teams that have demonstrated the safety and efficacy of Cochlear's bionic ear in both adults and children, and more recently the Bionic Institute's prototype bionic eye. He currently leads the preclinical program in an Australia-wide collaboration – Bionic Vision Australia – to develop a bionic eye. This ARC funded project aims to restore useful vision to blind patients. His research group developed a prototype bionic eye that has been successfully implanted in three blind volunteers for over 12 months without any significant clinical complications.
Prof Shepherd has published over 190 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, 70 NIH reports, 270 conference abstracts and more than 80 invited keynote conference presentations. He is a chief investigator on more than $55m of peer-reviewed research funding and $1.5m of contract research. He has supervised 10 PhD students to completion.
In his administrative role Prof Shepherd has overseen the expansion of the Bionic Ear Institute into the Bionics Institute and has widened the research portfolio to include cochlear implants, retinal prostheses the development of a neurobionic platform technology designed to alleviate a range of intractable and debilitating central nervous system disorders (e.g., epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and pain management) via central nervous system based neural prostheses.