NAKFI Alumni and Leaders
NAKFI Smart Prosthetics Grantee
Gerald Loeb, University of Southern California

With a $75,000 grant from NAKFI, Dr. Gerald Loeb was able to explore ways of restoring the sense of touch (which is critically important in effective use of the biological hand), for those with prosthetics hands. The new class of sensors, which draws inspiration from the shapes of real finger pads, nail beds will mimic the mechanical properties and touch receptors of the human fingertip. Dr. Loeb, who attended the NAKFI Smart Prosthetics conference in 2006, is a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California. He was awarded one of the Smart Prosthetics seed grants and comments that these grants “fill a critical niche” for interdisciplinary researchers wanting to explore imaginative new ideas like his.    Click here for a short video on Dr. Loeb’s research to develop prosthetic systems that can reanimate paralyzed limbs. http://bme.usc.edu/research/videos/loeb.htm