By Bruce Steele

A team of Pitt students and professors displayed its invention—a prosthetic device to stimulate blinking in patients suffering from facial nerve palsy—Oct. 23 at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Pitt’s team was one of only six from colleges and universities across the country invited to present working prototypes of their inventions during “Building Bionic Bodies,” a two-day (Oct. 23-24) event that examined the physical, ethical, social, and emotional consequences of implant technology. The event was sponsored by the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA).

The Pitt invention employs silicon chips and radio frequency technology to facilitate blinking with both eyes in people with Bell’s palsy (facial paralysis thought to be caused by virally induced swelling of the seventh optical nerve) and other facial nerve damage. MORE >>