Amber Researcher Prof Fergal O’Brien, professor of bioengineering and regenerative medicine, and deputy vice chancellor for research & innovation at RCSI has secured ERC Proof of Concept funding of €150,000 for project ‘DEEPSTIM’, a digitally enabled electroconductive patient-specific stimulation implant for spinal cord injury (SCI).

SCI can severely impact patients, impairing neurological function. The complex pathophysiology of SCI and the poor growth capacity of neurons results in a multi-faceted challenge to repair. Lifetime treatment costs for SCI patients can be as high as €2 million and approximately 11,000 new SCIs occur every year in the EU.

This project envisions a future whereby SCI patients receive a 3D-printed electroconductive implant matching the anatomy of the damaged regions of their spinal cord. The aim of this project is to develop, test and identify the optimal route to the market of a ground-breaking treatment for SCI repair consisting of a novel 3D printed patient-specific biomaterial platform for the directed delivery of pro-reparative therapeutic electrical stimulation (ES). This implant will direct targeted ES – driving the regrowth of the injured nerve cell and promoting functional recovery.

The ERC Proof of Concept Grants aim at facilitating exploration of the commercial and social innovation potential of ERC funded research, by funding further work (ie. activities which were not scheduled to be funded by the original ERC frontier research grant) to verify the innovation potential of ideas arising from ERC funded projects. Proof of Concept Grants are therefore on offer only to principal investigators whose proposals draw substantially on their ERC funded research.