Robert Allen Pearce

Equity Interest - Non-publicly traded entity ( e.g., stock, stock option, or other ownership interest)

Clinical Neuroengineering Training Program

The next decade will see unprecedented opportunities as well as challenges for medical science. Biological knowledge and understanding is increasing at an exponential rate particularly as to human disease. At the same time, there is growing dissatisfaction on the part of U.S. citizens for what is perceived as lack of translation to direct human benefit. Further, delivering new treatments is becoming increasingly problematic because of the remarkable changes in health-care delivery. Insurers and government regulators are insisting on new and very different means of demonstrating efficacy, particularly as it relates to quality of life and cost-effectiveness. Indeed, Evidence Based Medicine has become a mantra of health care administrators and one that biomedical engineers must not only understand but also master. Consequently, the context in which the scientist and engineer must operate has expanded greatly and into areas not typically addressed by traditional curricula. Rather, interdisciplinary teams of engineers, physicians, clinicians, and scientists will be critical to future medical successes. This means that the scientist or engineer of the future must have more than a passing acquaintance with many disciplines. The engineer or scientist must be able to problem solve in a multi-dimensional context. They must be able to orchestrate different disciplines; recognizing where and when each individual discipline is appropriate and needed. The goal of this Clinical Neuroengineering Training Program (CNTP) is to train a cohort of engineers and scientists with an interdisciplinary approach linking the traditional areas of biomedical engineering and physical science, neuroscience, and clinical practice.