Talk topic: The next chapter in neurotech – A turning point in treating brain disorders.
Surjo R. Soekadar, MD, is an Einstein Professor of Clinical Neurotechnology at the Charité – University Medicine Berlin and works on the next-generation neural-machine interfaces to restore human brain function. He and his team demonstrated for the first time that a noninvasive brain-hand-exoskeleton can enable quadriplegic people with complete finger paralysis to eat and drink independently in an outside restaurant. After studying medicine in Mainz, Heidelberg and Baltimore, he worked as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist at the University of Tübingen.
With support of the Einstein Foundation Berlin, he was appointed at the Charité, the largest university hospital in Europe, to foster clinical translation of the latest advances in neurotechnology. His research is supported by various public funding agencies, including the European Research Council (ERC) and the Federal Ministry of Research and Education.