The Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) and the MIT School of Engineering named Benjamin Rapoport, an HST MD/PhD candidate, one of three MIT-CIMIT Medical Engineering Fellowships. Intended to support research in medical science and healthcare, the fellowships will advance developments in assessing neuromuscular diseases, biomedical monitoring, and thought-controlled prosthetic limbs.
Rapoport's research is part of an effort to build thought-controlled prosthetic limbs for paralyzed patients. He is participating in a collaboration to design, build and test an ultra-low-power analog microelectronic system for use in neuromotor prostheses to treat several types of brain damage by neurosurgically implanting synthetic neural circuitry.
"The MIT-CIMIT Fellowships provide important support to select graduate students who work in innovative areas of healthcare research," said Dean Subra Suresh of the MIT School of Engineering. "Since medicine and health care are among the most critical issues that we all face, having this new source of funding is invaluable in furthering this crucial work."
"I am very pleased with the quality of applicants that we considered," said John Parrish, MD, director of CIMIT. "The proposals of the winners suggest great potential. Hopefully the technology that we encourage today will help patients in the future."
The other two Medical Engineering Fellows are Faisal Kashif, a PhD candidate in electrical engineering and computer science and Olumuyiwa "Muyiwa" Ogunnika, a PhD candidate in electrical engineering and computer science.
