Shriners Children’s

“You see and want the glass of milk on the table across the room. That’s no problem for most of us, who will simply walk to the table, grab the glass, and enjoy the milk. Triggering all of that limb movement is a complex set of coordinated neuromuscular commands and actions, which are not so simple for that segment of the population with, say, cerebral palsy or spinal cord injury.

“To help young people struggling with those conditions – or orthopedic problems like clubfoot, scoliosis, and osteogenesis imperfecta, among other things – Shriners Children’s ® and the Georgia Institute of Technology launched an ambitious collaborative research effort to address these conditions, including the development of devices to facilitate limb movement and function.

“Our joint goals, through genetic and genomic data gathered by Shriners Hospitals for Children, are to improve patient therapeutic responses by optimizing individualized treatment regimens and reducing adverse events,” Lalande said.”

Read more from Georgia Tech Research Horizons including description of one of the first funded projects led by Jaydev Desai, professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory University and Scott Kozin, M.D., chief of staff and hand surgeon at Shriners Hospitals for Children-Philadelphia, on a wearable customized robotic exoskeleton with voice recognition for children with cervical spine injury.

Funding decisions are made by a committee consisting of the Shriners Hospital for Children Vice President of Research Programs, Shriners clinicians and Georgia Tech Pediatric Technologies leadership.

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