Research matters to Ian Burkhart. Check out this video that highlights the recovery he saw from Blackrock Neurotech’s Utah Array, which is a brain-computer interface (BCI) that is still confined to the lab. This kind of progress is lovely to see! And it’s why U2FP continues to collaborate, facilitate and initiate opportunities for our community to engage with researchers so that we pick up the pace towards functional recovery. 

Ian was the first person with paralysis to restore movement to a paralyzed limb, using a brain-computer interface (BCI).

“I got a taste of what BCI’s could do,” said Ian. “I feel incredibly fortunate to have had a ‘taste’ of restoring movement to my hand, and now I’ve dedicated my work to helping these devices become accessible to others.” 

Ian launched the Ian Burkhart Foundation to support individuals suffering from paralysis - and one of the key points of his foundation’s work is to further research efforts like the one he experienced. He's also the president of North American Spinal Cord Injury Consortium (NASCIC).

Ian is an active member of U2FP's Ohio Cure Advocacy Network where we passed a $3M SCI Research Grant bill in 2019. He also participates as a "lab rat" in our SCI Consultant program, which places individuals with an injury into research labs as lived-experience consultants.

The trial Ian was in ended in 2021 and his device was removed. Other groups are doing ongoing & similar work, all currently are only used in labs. Some individuals are able to use implanted brain-computer interfaces for mouse and keyboard control in their daily lives.

If there is no investment in these types of discovery trials, no one would get a “taste” of what’s possible!!

Help U2FP continue our work to educate and advocate for functional recovery research. We can’t do this without your support. Please donate to advance our advocacy work, which includes:

• Passing legislative bills that fund treatments for functional recovery work via our Cure Advocacy Network ($40M in funding to date - and we’re pivoting to a federal push soon!)
• Placing individuals with an SCI into research labs as lived experience consultants, which keeps the urgency and pragmatism of translational research at the forefront
• Bringing industry leaders together with the SCI community at our Annual Symposium (note: Florian Solzbacher, MS, PhD, spoke at U2FP’s Annual Symposium in 2022, just after Ian Burkhart’s BCI trial with their device ended. Watch his talk here).

DONATE NOW

And we have good news: our campaign to meet a $50,000 match grant from an anonymous SCI donor has been extended into October! That means your contribution will still be doubled (up to $50,000!) if you give right now. Then consider becoming a monthly donor if you aren’t already —your contributions can help move the needle beyond labs to everyone else! 

Join us!