Eric C. Leuthardt, M.D., a Washington University neurosurgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, has been named one of this year’s Top Young Innovators by Technology Review, MIT’s Magazine of Innovation.
The distinction is awarded each year to 100 individuals under age 35 whose innovative work in technology has a profound impact on the world. The awardees will be honored at the magazine’s conference Sept. 29-30 and will be listed in the October 2004 issue.
“This year’s winners are all pioneering fascinating innovations in the fields of biomedicine, computing and nanotechnology, and were chosen after a rigorous selection and judging process,” says David Rotman, executive editor of Technology Review. “The result is an elite group whose visions and inventions will shape the future of technology.”
Leuthardt made international headlines this summer when he and colleague Daniel Moran, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering, placed electronic grids atop patients’ brains to gather motor signals that enabled patients to play a computer game using only their brains. The breakthrough is a step toward building biomedical devices that can control artificial limbs, allowing, for example, a patient with a prosthetic arm to move his artificial limb simply by thinking about it.
“Our work may potentially improve the lives of people with such disabilities as ALS and spinal cord injuries,” Leuthardt says. “Additionally, this type of research is producing some fundamental insights into many different fields ranging from neurophysiology to clinical medicine.”
The full-time and volunteer faculty of Washington University School of Medicine are the physicians and surgeons of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.