Aadeel Akhtar, a recent doctoral recipient in neuroscience from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, learned at a young age living in Pakistan that the availability and affordability of resources could greatly impact the course of someone’s life. He’s spent his adult life building an academic background that would help him make a difference. Akhtar recently co-founded Psyonic, a biointegrated technology company, and intends to develop highly functionable and affordable prosthetic devices for amputees around the world.

Psyonic’s first product is an advanced bionic hand that, “has more functionality than $30,000 prosthetic hands…is easy to control, provides touch feedback, and is robust to impacts.” Retired Sergeant Garrett Anderson, who lost his right arm in Iraq in 2005, helped Akhtar test and refine prototypes. The Psyonic product is unique because it incorporates sensory feedback and is priced at about a tenth the cost of commercially available devices.

Dr. Akhtar’s master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from UIUC provided him a strong technical background to build the protheses. He’s currently a medical student and an NIH National Research Service Award MD/PhD Fellow at Illlinois. To learn more about Aadeel’s past research, visit the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign website.

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Editor's note:
Join us at the Engineering Open House for the free premiere of Make It Work, from concept to company, a documentary about Dr. Akhtar and his journey to create PSYONIC, a start-up with a mission to build an affordable, state-of-the-art bionic hand.

7 p.m. | Friday, March 9 | CSL Auditorium (Room B02)
Q&A with Aadeel Akhtar to follow!

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Photo caption: Dr. Akhtar (left) fits Retired Army Sgt. Garrett Anderson, who lost his hand and most of his forearm from an IED blast in Iraq, with a Psyonic prosthetic hand.

Photo by L. Brian Stauffer

Story reposted from the Council of Graduate Schools.