Son Jung-woo, founding president of the Korea BCI Society, is interviewed by Dong-A Science on the N Center on the Natural Sciences Campus of Sungkyunkwan University on the 14th. Reporter Moon Se-young
As Elon Musk’s Neuralink expands the variety of contributors in its invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) medical trials to dozens, and China not too long ago permitted on the market what it calls the world’s first invasive BCI medical system for sufferers with spinal twine accidents, the race for dominance within the world BCI market is accelerating. While tech powerhouses transfer to safe an early lead, the Korea BCI Society has been launched as the tutorial hub for home BCI analysis and as a hyperlink connecting trade, academia, analysis institutes, and hospitals.
“Just as major powers monopolized nuclear technology in its early development stage and then created global regulations in the name of addressing its dangers, effectively blocking latecomers, new international regulations could be introduced for BCI based on the view that technologies for reading and writing brain signals are dangerous,” stated Son Jung-woo, founding president of the Korea BCI Society and a professor on the Catholic Kwandong University College of Medicine, whom we not too long ago met on the N Center on the Natural Sciences Campus of Sungkyunkwan University. “Korea must be a country that ‘leads’ discussions on global standards and regulations, not one that merely ‘accepts’ them,” he added.
BCI is a expertise that captures human mind alerts to management exterior units corresponding to computer systems, robotic arms, and wheelchairs, or conversely delivers exterior info again to the mind. Because units may be managed by way of mind waves or neural alerts generated by thought, the expertise will help sufferers who’re unable to transfer regain misplaced language and motor features.
“The value of BCI starts with ‘functional restoration,’ such as enabling patients with spinal cord injuries to control a cursor or robotic arm using only their thoughts, allowing patients with severe paralysis to communicate, and restoring damaged sensations,” Son stated. “As a field that combines medicine, artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, and robotics, it has enormous academic and industrial impact.”
The enhance in home BCI researchers and the inflow of expertise and capital into the BCI trade abroad prompted requires the institution of an expert society. The alternative arose when BCI was designated as one in all 12 missions within the government-led Ok-Moonshot Project. A complete of 46 consultants shaped six analysis clusters—medical, trade, electrodes and units, chips/IC/wi-fi, decoding and AI, and stimulation and interfaces—and accomplished the inaugural assembly of promoters. The society shall be formally launched with its first normal meeting on August 26.
Son, who’s the one researcher in Korea conducting invasive BCI research on non-human primates, will function the inaugural president. Professor Kim Sung-pil of the Brain-Computer Interface Laboratory at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and Professor Cho Il-ju of Korea University College of Medicine, who additionally serves as this system director (PD) for the Ok-Moonshot BCI mission, shall be vice presidents. Professor Lim Chang-hwan of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Hanyang University will chair the tutorial committee, and Professor Hwang Han-jung of the Department of Digital Healthcare Engineering at Korea University will function secretary normal.
Son Jung-woo, founding president of the Korea BCI Society, inspects BCI tools for non-human primate experiments on the N Center on the Natural Sciences Campus of Sungkyunkwan University on the 14th. Reporter Moon Se-young
• “We can’t stop at papers and patents… we must move quickly to clinical trials to avoid missing the golden hour”
The Ok-Moonshot Project has served as a sign for consolidating BCI analysis capabilities that had been scattered throughout medical drugs, engineering, AI, and system fields. Son expressed his help for the federal government’s roadmap, which goals to commercialize therapies to overcome spinal twine accidents and language problems and deal with mind ailments, in addition to to conquer higher-order mind perform problems corresponding to visible impairment, dementia, and melancholy.
However, he voiced concern that previous nationwide R&D tasks have typically fixated on the variety of papers and patents, solely to be consumed as short-term achievements. “Because Professor Cho Il-ju, vice president of the BCI Society, is also the PD for the K-Moonshot BCI mission, we expect close linkage between the society and national industry,” Son stated. “In the past, many government-funded projects spent enormous budgets and ended up as just a few papers and patents confined to the lab. For the BCI Moonshot Project, the endpoint of the project must be clinical application, so that it does not stop at technology development,” he emphasised.
He pressured that for analysis outcomes to attain the market, there have to be an built-in, cross-ministerial governance construction that brings collectively not solely the Ministry of Science and ICT but in addition the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, which oversees approvals; the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which manages reimbursement and medical follow; and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which drives industrialization.
“Korea possesses world-class infrastructure in electrical, electronic, and semiconductor engineering, and has outstanding capabilities in electrode development based on microfabrication technologies such as electrode miniaturization and multichannel integration,” Son stated. “We also have clinicians at major domestic hospitals with world-leading surgical skills. If we can bring together these scattered pieces of the puzzle and connect them quickly through to clinical application, we will not miss the golden hour in this race for dominance,” he stated with optimism.
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