Biomechatronics Pioneer on Meeting the Needs of Women Patients

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2:17Hugh Herr:News. You're listening to Bloomberg Businessweek with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. It is time for Bloomberg Businessweek's women's health segment. This is where we focus on key issues in developing technologies impacting the present and future of women's health around the world. And in many ways, we get into health generally. But with us right now is a special guest, Hugh Herr. He's a professor from the MIT Media Lab, co-director of the Kay Lisa Yang Center for Bionics at MIT. Dr. Her joining us from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hugh, great to have you here with us. Thank you so much.

2:54Pleasure to be here.

2:55Hugh Herr:Yeah, great to have you here. And if you may, your story, you know, my understanding is you lost both your legs at 17. You're now helping others that have gone through similar things and helping them in their future. Could you just share a little bit about maybe what happened and really how it's shaped what you're doing today? Yeah, sure. As a young man, I was passionate about mountain climbing. And when I was 17, I was in a mountain climbing accident and suffered frostbite. And my medical team gave up the fight to see my biological limbs and they were amputated just below the knee. So today, I use very high tech powered prostheses to stand, walk and run.

3:39So from that experience, I really realized how limited current prosthetic technology was. And I really dedicated my life as a young man to really advance the field and enable extraordinary technology that will allow people to do what they want again, to move again.

4:00Hugh Herr:Well, and if I met. And have the bodies that they seek. Right. And my understanding, you've been at that MIT Media Lab for, I think, 21 years. You have a doctor of philosophy from Harvard. What has changed when it comes to prosthetics since you joined the lab? Yeah, good question. So when I was first fitted with prostheses when I was 17, the prostheses were made of wood and foam and metal. They didn't have any computational intelligence, no sensories, information, no actuation. And I said to myself at the time, really, this is it. This is what society can provide. Today, there exists computer control prostheses that adapt and are even connected to the human nervous system that can convey human agency and ownership and really restore physicality for humans.

4:56So if that's what exists today, then what's coming in the next 10, 20 years? What are you working on? Yeah, we're laser focused on integrating human biology with mechatronics. Our key goal is to connect the human brain to a built construct like an exoskeleton or a prosthesis. Our mission is to restore physicality. In the case of when a person loses a limb or in a case where a person suffers a stroke and has paralysis or has muscular weakness or joint damage, we can build these vionic systems to restore movement.

5:38Hugh Herr:I am curious, too. And, you know, we've been doing these segments for a while, and often we do any kind of medical segment. We do think about the differences between men and women. And I'm curious how what you've come across when it's, you know, developing technologies or outcomes or prosthetics for men versus women. Are there differences? Yeah, absolutely. In the case of limb amputation, amputations caused by traumatic injury are predominantly performed on men. It's about in the U.S. it's about 70 percent men and 30 percent women. So because of that male dominance, the prosthetic technology seems to be developed through the lens of needs that men face and not women.

6:28So there's a tremendous need to develop truly personalized prosthetic limbs that reflect the needs of the individual and don't have that male bias. And that's a key area of research here at MIT. Is that male bias because of war and military or no? I mean, it's typical for traumatic injury that there be a male dominance. I won't make a joke there, but whether it be spinal cord injury due to car crashes or amputation, there's typically more men than women. So the prosthetic industry needs to not only reflect the needs of men, but also obviously of women. I have to say, that's a tremendous focus for our research.

7:18Hugh Herr:No, I've got four brothers, two sisters, and my brother's man, risk takers. And there were more accidents and runs to the emergency room. I didn't want to say that. And broken limbs and things, unfortunately. So yeah, we definitely saw that. 100%. So Hugh, I'm wondering about at what point, look, and it's a question that we have when it comes to any innovation, but we know that the work is always ongoing and the work will always continue. But what is the ultimate outcome? And when do you think we're going to be able to get there? You said the goal is to have this type of medical device be completely controlled by the human and as close to somebody's limb as actually possible.

8:02Can you give us a timeline when you will say we have achieved this? Yeah, again, broadly, we're rebuilding limbs after amputation. We're also augmenting limbs that are fully flesh and bones. For in the case of a woman suffering a stroke, for example, we want to restore the functionality of her leg, as an example. Or a person that suffers osteoarthritis, we want to allow them to move again without pain. What's the broad goalposts? What's the broad goal? That, you know, that people don't experience unwanted limitation, unwanted disability. Imagine a world where when you lose a limb or have a spinal cord injury or suffered a stroke or have joint disease, that you can move again.

8:52You can move without pain. You can dance again if you'd like. That's the world that we seek.

8:57Hugh Herr:One thing I want to ask you, and certainly in terms of, I think, about diabetes and how much that impacts our population, and that can lead to certainly difficulties or amputations, certainly with feet, toes, all that stuff that certainly impacts your mobility. GLP-1 drugs, is that something you think about and how that might impact some of what you are doing in that regard? I mean, any strategy that, you know, in time mitigates the probability of an amputation being required from a severe diabetic state is, of course, fantastic. In many developed nations of the world, the cases of diabetes are increasing precipitously.

9:52And some of the cases are so severe that amputation results and prostheses are required. So yeah, we can approach the problem in two ways. A, preventing a severe state of diabetes. And in cases when there is an amputation that occurs, developing extraordinary bionics that enables a person to restore their movement capacity, their cardiovascular capacity, and maintain a high level of health.

10:22Hugh Herr:Well, we so appreciate getting time with you. We want to talk to you about AI, but maybe we can get you back here and continue this conversation because we know technology and medical devices and health care overall definitely intersecting. Dr. Hugh Herr, professor from the MIT Media Lab, co-director of the Kay Lisa Yang Center for Bionics at MIT, joining us from Cambridge.

10:49What if data didn't sit still? What if intelligence moved with us? Not buried in reports, but activated in real time. Where lives are being shaped. Where decisions are being made. It all starts with a question. Where is the potential? Coatality turns data into clarity. Intelligence into insight. Insight into action. because when intelligence moves, we all move forward. Cotality, intelligence beyond bounds. So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need.

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