Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates support new research that will allow patients to operate technology through their minds. They have reportedly funded a start-up company in the brain-computer interface, Synchron.
Billionaires Support Technology For Brain Computer Interface
The co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, and Amazon founder and executive chairman, Jeff Bezos, both funded Synchron, a brain interface startup that aims to develop a technology that could transform the lives of people with mobility problems. In December, Synchron announced a $75 million financing round that included contributions from the investment firms of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
The Synchron Switch is implanted through the blood vessels to enable individuals with no or very limited physical mobility to control technology with their minds, such as cursors and smart home devices. The nascent technology has thus far been utilized on three patients in the United States and four patients in Australia.
Tom Oxley, chief executive officer of Synchron, told CNBC in an interview that he has witnessed moments between patients and their partners or spouses in which it is incredibly gratifying and empowering to have regained a measure of independence. It facilitates participation in ways that we take for granted.
Synchron was founded in 2012 and is a part of the flourishing BCI (brain-computer interface) industry. A BCI is a system that decodes and translates brain signals into commands for external technologies. Neuralink is arguably the most well-known company in the field, due to the prominence of its founder Elon Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter,
With Bezos and Gates joining the BCI, Musk is no longer the only tech billionaire betting on the eventual transformation of BCI from a radical scientific experiment to a thriving medical business.
More About Synchron
Syncron aims to create an endovascular implant that can transfer information from every corner of the brain at scale. It has been developing a solution to avoid open brain surgery using minimally-invasive procedures since 2012.
In 2020, FDA awarded its stentrode the Breakthrough Device Designation. In 2021, Synchron became the first company to receive an FDA ID to conduct trials of a permanently implantable BCI.
Synchron's stentrode is an endovascular implant placed in a vein alongside the motor context generating any signal related to movement. It is equipped with tiny sensors that deliver to the large vein sitting next to the motor cortex. A receiver device implanted in the chest transmits the neural signals to a decoder. A machine learning algorithm will translate those signals into specific digital commands.
Oxley said that the BCI is inserted through the blood vessels and not
Peter Yoo, senior director of neuroscience at Synchron, said they didn't insert the device directly into the brain tissue, so the brain signal isn't perfect. However, they opt for this strategy because the brain doesn't want to be touched by foreign objects. Yoo said the less invasive nature of the procedure, the more it is accessible.
Synchron can help people suffering from severe paralysis or degenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by helping them regain their ability to communicate through typing, texting or accessing social media.
They can also use Synchron's BCI to shop online and manage their finances. However, the most exciting feature was text messaging.
Oxley said losing the ability to text is isolating and restoring it is very emotional. In December, Oxley handed his Twitter account to a patient named Philip O'Keefe, who is suffering from ALS and struggles to move his hands. They implanted Synchron's BCI to O'Keefe 20 months earlier and he was able to tweet on Oxley's page.
"hello, world! Short tweet. Monumental progress," O'Keefe's tweeted.
Khosla Ventures partner Alex Morgan, who lead an earlier financing round, was happy that Synchron is helping people. According to him, it's "really exceptional."
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Check out more news and information on Neuralink in Science Times.
