A Medical Device Daily

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (Laurel, Maryland) has received a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to complete development of a prosthetic arm that will be controlled, feel, look and perform like a natural limb.

Funding will support phase 2 of DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 (RP 2009) program, an ambitious effort to provide the most advanced medical and rehabilitative technologies for military personnel injured in the line of duty.

In phase 1, the APL-led RP 2009 team of about 30 organizations developed two prototypes. The first prototype, presented to DARPA less than a year after the project started, is a fully integrated prosthetic arm that can be controlled naturally, provide sensory feedback and allows for eight degrees of freedom — a level of control far beyond the current state of the art for prosthetic limbs. The Proto 1 limb system also includes a virtual environment used for patient training, clinical configuration, and to record limb movements and control signals during clinical investigations.

The second prototype, demonstrated at DARPA Tech 2007 last August, has 25 individual joints that approach the natural speed and range of motion of the human limb. These mechanical limb systems are complemented by a range of emerging neural integration strategies that promise to restore near-natural control and important sensory feedback capabilities.

In grants news: Paul Berger, MD, has donated $1.5 million to the Research and Education Foundation of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA, Oak Brook, Illinois) to endow the Derek Harwood-Nash Scholar Grant. This donation represents the largest individual gift and first individual grant endowment in the 24-year history of the RSNA Research and Education Foundation.

The gift is a tribute to the late Derek Harwood-Nash, who founded the subspecialty of pediatric neuroradiology and spent his life sharing his expertise with radiologists around the world. In honor of his influence on the international radiologic community, the Derek Harwood-Nash Scholar Grant will focus on opportunities for international educators and investigators.

“This will be the first scholar grant open to young academic radiologists outside North America,” said Anne Osborn, MD, chair of the RSNA Research and Education Foundation. “Derek Harwood-Nash’s passion for his African homeland and his numerous friends and colleagues all over the world made him a roving ambassador for RSNA.”