MASSDEVICE ON CALL — San Diego-based NeuroVigil is launching its 1st clinical trials in Philadelphia, evaluating a new system that the company says can help patients suffering from ALS communicate and interact with the outside world.
The device maker has also launched a satellite office in Mountain View, Calif., where it’ll partner with NASA to further develop its brain-interface technology.
The device is comprised of a wireless EEG monitoring system called iBrain, originally developed to monitor and record sleeping brain activity. Researchers made the jump to communicative and interactive functions thanks in part to a 2011 conversation that NeuroVigil founder, chairman and CEO Dr. Philip Low had with legendary physicist Stephen Hawking, News Medical reported.
Obamacare an unlikely cure to our health security woes?
Early stages of implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s online portals have been plagued with security concerns and technical gaffes, but the national attention and media scrutiny may finally spur improvements that many have urged for years.
Read more
Energy magnate gives $20M to eye care research
The Wilmer Eye Institute will get a $20 million donation from Texas energy mogul T. Boone Pickens, funding an endowment for promising new research.
Read more
A little sunlight in the operating room
Colombia University researchers say that narrow-spectrum ultraviolet light may be a safe and highly effective way to destroy drug-resistant bacteria and reduce post-surgery infections.
Read more
Big pharma paid big bucks for access to FDA, report says
Pharmaceutical companies paid as much as $25,000 each to sit in on FDA advisory panel meetings, according to emails obtained via a public records request.
Read more