Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates-Backed Startup Aims To Help Patients With Paralysis

Synchron, a US-based brain interface startup, backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, is working on technology designed to transform daily life for people with paralysis, CNBC reported.

What is Synchron?

Synchron, founded in 2012, is one of the emerging crop of companies testing technology in the brain-computer interface industry. In December last year, the company announced a $75 million funding round, with participation from the investment firms of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

The US Food and Drug Administration granted Synchron the Breakthrough Device designation in August 2020, which is reserved for medical devices that have the potential to improve treatment for debilitating or life-threatening conditions.

How does it work?

According to the report, the Synchron Switch is implanted through the blood vessels and allows patients to operate technology such as cursors and smart home devices using only their minds. Stentrode, a Synchron stent, is fitted with tiny sensors and delivered to a large vein near the motor cortex.

The experimental technology has been tested on three patients in the US and four in Australia so far. 

How can it benefit people?

The technology can help patients with severe paralysis or degenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. It can help them regain their ability to communicate with friends, family and the outside world, whether through typing, texting or even accessing social media. 

''I've seen moments between patient and partner, or patient and spouse, where it's incredibly joyful and empowering to have regained an ability to be a little bit more independent than before. It helps them engage in ways that we take for granted,'' Synchron CEO Tom Oxley told CNBC in an interview. 

A similar venture was started by Elon Musk

Neuralink, founded in 2016 by Mr Musk and a group of engineers, is building a brain chip interface that can be implanted within the skull, which it says could eventually help disabled patients to move and communicate again, and also restore vision.

In December 2022, Elon Musk said that the interface would allow the user to communicate directly with computers through their thoughts. He added that he plans to get one of the chips himself.

"We've submitted I think most of our paperwork to the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) and we think probably in about six months we should be able to have our first Neuralink in a human," he said in a company presentation, last year.