Revolutionizing Prosthetics

Learn About the Man Behind the Effort to Build the 1st Successful Bionic Arm

kcollins | June 3, 2011

The human hand - four fingers and a thumb. When we lose it due to injury, we've lost something that truly makes us human. That's a key reason why the Pentagon's "Revolutionizing Prosthetics" program, a $100 million multi-disciplinary effort in science and engineering is so important. It is working towards building a robotic arm with a fully functioning hand -- a feat never before accomplished in medicine. The need for such a development is accentuated by the number of wounded soldiers returning home after service in Iraq and Afghanistan, many having suffered the amputation of their arm. "We…