{"id":262668,"date":"2022-12-21T08:55:33","date_gmt":"2022-12-21T08:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=262668"},"modified":"2022-12-22T06:39:41","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T06:39:41","slug":"gates-bezos-invest-in-synchrons-brain-computer-interface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=262668","title":{"rendered":"Gates, Bezos invest in Synchron\u2019s brain computer interface"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Peter Green \u2013 Med Tech Drive Dec 16, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n<h3><strong>Dive Brief:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The investment arms of billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates joined a $75 million investment round in Synchron, a Brooklyn-based firm building a brain-computer interface for people who are paralyzed below the neck.<\/li>\n<li>The investment will fund clinical trials and further development of the device, which is inserted into the brain through the jugular vein, removing the need for invasive surgery.<\/li>\n<li>Synchron implanted its first BCI in a U.S. patient in July, while Twitter CEO Elon Musk\u2019s BCI startup, Neuralink, said it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/elon-musk-says-expects-neuralink-begin-human-trials-six-months-2022-12-01\/\">expects<\/a>\u00a0to test its technology on humans by mid-2023.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Dive Insight:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Synchron\u2019s \u201cSwitch\u201d BCI is implanted in a blood vessel on the surface of the brain\u2019s motor cortex through a minimally-invasive procedure that threads the device up the jugular vein to the brain. Once implanted, it can detect and wirelessly transmit what Synchron calls \u201cmotor intent\u201d from the brain, enabling people with severe paralysis to control computers and smart phones with hands-free point-and-click technology.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe problem of paralysis is much larger than people realize,\u201d Tom Oxley, Synchron\u2019s\u00a0founder and CEO,\u00a0said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20221213006045\/en\/Synchron-Raises-75M-Series-C-Led-by-ARCH-Venture-Partners-to-Advance-Endovascular-Brain-Computer-Interface\">statement<\/a>. \u201c100 million people worldwide have upper limb impairment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The investment, a Series C, was led by ARCH Venture Partners and brings the total raised since inception to $145 million, Synchron said. The funding will help the firm speed development of the device and fund a key clinical trial.<\/p>\n<p>An ongoing clinical trial, called COMMAND,\u00a0 is assessing the impact of the device on daily tasks, including texting, emailing, online shopping and telehealth services. Synchron won Breakthrough Device designation from the Food and Drug Administration in August, 2020 and secured an Investigational Device Exemption in July 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Human clinical trials also are underway in Australia and the University of Melbourne took part in the recent fundraising round.<\/p>\n<p>Musk\u2019s firm is currently the target of a federal investigation into mistreatment of animals on which it has been experimenting with CBI\u2019s, Reuters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/musks-neuralink-faces-federal-probe-employee-backlash-over-animal-tests-2022-12-05\/\">reported<\/a>\u00a0earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/12\/13\/health\/elon-musk-brain-implants-paralysis.html\">article in The New York Times<\/a> on CBIs including Musk\u2019s Neuralink, Cristin Welle, a University of Colorado neuroscientist, noted that device makers will have to \u201csurmount the challenge of operating electronics for years in the soggy milieu of the brain,\u201d and will need to prove that the device \u201cdoesn\u2019t generate heat or current that unduly injures the delicate brain tissue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.medtechdive.com\/news\/gates-bezos-synchron-brain-computer-interface\/638953\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Billionaires pool funds for research into an implant that can be inserted through the jugular vein to interface human brains with computers  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Fringe_Science_New_Discoveries_and_Developments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262669,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262668\/revisions\/262669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}