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Thanks to the latest in optical technology, good news may be on the horizon for those with hearing impairments. The French National Research Institute (ANR) has awarded Abdallah Gazaden, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech and president of Georgia Tech Lorraine, his €560,000 grant to develop a new class of technology. ($560,700). This project aims to manufacture a small, high-density photostimulation cochlear implant with a removable LED (CORTIORGAN).
Collaborators on the project include Jean-Paul Salvestrini, Director of the Georgia Tech-CNRS IRL 2958 Institute and Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Paul Voss, ECE Associate Professor. And he is Suresh Sundaram, an ECE associate and his lecturer.
“CORTIORGAN takes cochlear implant technology in a whole new direction by optically stimulating the cochlea with a compact, dense and highly flexible LED implant,” he said. In particular, we use a new semiconductor material, namely two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride, that fundamentally rethinks existing methods for processing inorganic LED devices. ”
A key technology is based on optogenetics, a breakthrough biological technique that uses light to stimulate neurons and other cells. The technology has numerous medical and neuroscience applications, such as restoring vision and blocking pain signals.
CORTIORGAN’s goal is to develop a detachable, ultra-thin LED that can be packaged in a cochlear implant. The new process allows researchers to meet the size and flexibility requirements of cochlear implants that will be placed in the mouse cochlea and tested at the end of the project.
Researchers use optogenetic methods instead of conventional electrical stimulation to achieve optical stimulation of the auditory nerve. Due to the high electrical conductivity of cochlear tissue, optical stimulation of nerves improves spatial resolution and improves implant quality.
“This innovation will have a strong positive impact on deaf people by providing them with optical implants with higher spatial resolution and audio fidelity compared to existing electrostimulation technologies,” he said. Ougazzaden added. “This optical technique will open the door to future neuroscience applications with many commercial opportunities.”
Other partners include the Pasteur Institute, a renowned biomedical research center based in Paris, and the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, a collaboration between the University of Paris-Saclay and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). C2N) are included.