Col. Geoffrey Ling, MD, PhD and Hugh Herr, PhD will deliver the keynote addresses at Neuroprosthetics 2012, an international symposium organized by the Bioengineering Institute and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The symposium will be held on February 23 at the WPI campus in Worcester, Mass., according to a press release.
Ling is a project manager in the Defense Science Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He is in charge of a number of initiatives that focus on biology and biotechnology, including the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program.
Herr, a double amputee, is the director of the biomechatronics group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He leads MIT’s efforts to develop advanced lower limb motorized prostheses.
This is the third international symposium organized by BEI, and the theme is “Neural Interfaces as Enablers for Advanced Prosthetic Function.” The presentations will focus on the science and engineering needed to create connections between the brain and an advanced prosthetic device.
“Developing advanced prostheses that can successfully integrate with the body and be controlled by the nervous system is a difficult challenge,” Christopher Lambert, PhD, BEI’s associate director of research, ad interim, and research associate professor, stated in the release. “That’s why this symposium is so helpful. It will give people who are working at the leading edge of the various disciplines involved in this research a unique opportunity to spend a day together to share ideas and information, which in turn will help move the field forward.”
