Bioengineered arm replacement is topic of lecture at SUNY New Paltz

NEW PALTZ — The School of Science and Engineering at the State University of New York at New Paltz will continue its 2005-2006 colloquium series this fall with a lecture titled “Reaching Towards a Useful Arm Replacement,” at 4 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 17, in the Coykendall Science Building (CSB) auditorium.

Speaker Dr. William Craelius, an expert in bioengineered prosthetics, will discuss the evolution of prosthetic arms from cosmetic attachments to sophisticated implementations of modern bioengineering. He will explain how he and his team have worked to isolate specific neurons in the motor cortex to achieve a surprising degree of control.

“This is a particularly interesting subject, because it involves a number of different disciplines,” said David Clark, colloquium chair, who explained that the topic is rooted in bioengineering, a synthesis of biology and engineering, but also involves computer science, communications, psychology and mathematics.

Craelius is a professor at Rutgers University, where he and his team have been developing bioengineered prosthetic limbs. He invented the Dextra artificial hand, the first of its kind to let a person use existing nerve pathways to control individual computer-driven mechanical fingers.

This event is free and open to the public. A reception will precede the lecture at 3:30 p.m. For more information or directions, call (845) 257-3728, or visit the School of Science and Engineering on the Web at www.newpaltz.edu/sse.