Michigan Medicine to Establish Neural Engineering Training Program James Weiland, Ph.D., Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, led a successful cross-campus effort to establish a Neural Engineering Training Program (NETP) at the University of Michigan. Funding for this new graduate training program will be provided by an institutional research training grant (T32) from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke (NINDS). The grant will support advanced training for predoctoral students whose research seeks to advance new applications of technology leading to the development of clinical devices for the treatment of complex neurological disorders.
Kate Kish, doctoral student in Biomedical Engineering, with James Weiland, Ph.D.
From neuromodulation systems that treat epilepsy, movement disorders and pain, to neural prostheses that restore lost
workshop will be conducted in collaboration with the existing
function to eyes and limbs, neurotechnology is transforming
Kellogg Vision Research Training Program.
medicine. “To create the next generation of devices and implants
“Ophthalmology is among the fields with the most to gain
that will truly change lives, we need better human/machine
from supporting the next generation of neural engineering lead-
interfaces, novel new materials, and a fuller realization of the
ers,” says Dr. Weiland, who also directs the U-M BioElectronic
potential of artificial intelligence,” says Dr. Weiland, who will
Vision Lab (BEVL). His lab is at the forefront of creating and
serve as NETP director. “For all of that, we need highly trained
translating technological solutions for visual dysfunction, in-
neural engineers capable of leading interdisciplinary teams to
cluding bioelectronic retinal prostheses and wearable visual aids
keep up with the pace of discovery.”
for the blind.
Kellogg Eye Center is one of eight University of Michigan
The NETP, which launched in July 2021, will initially
entities collaborating to deliver a targeted curriculum, mentor-
support up to four graduate student slots and will sponsor a
ship and student-led initiatives. To ensure that rigorous ana-
number of training and networking opportunities for trainees
lytical techniques are learned and applied, a statistics training
from more than 30 U-M labs.
Endocrine Society Award Terry Smith, M.D., has been awarded the 2022 Gerald D.
Aurbach Award for Outstanding Translational Research from the Endocrine Society. Dr. Smith, the Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professor Emeritus of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Kellogg, and Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine at the U-M Medical School, is the only endocrinologist in the U.S. with a full-time primary faculty appointment in ophthalmology at an academic eye center. His pioneering work in Graves’ disease and related autoimmune conditions has culminated in the creation of teprotumumab — the first FDA-approved therapy to treat thyroid eye disease. 19
