ARTICLE SUMMARY:
A Swiss start-up spun out of a leading neuroscience research center brings advanced brain-computer interfaces out of the lab and into patients’ heads to help them overcome the limitations of disability.
When ABILITY Neurotech CEO and co-founder Rotem Kopel was first introduced to the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering research institute in Geneva, Switzerland, she was working as a partner at an investment banking firm assessing the future potential of the center’s portfolio of neurotechnology products. Eventually, Kopel and her business partner Craig Cook formed a company to bring to commercial fruition a Wyss Institute project that had been nine years and $50 million in the making—the next generation of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, befitting the center’s heritage. Wyss’ first director John Donoghue, PhD, a pioneer of the BrainGate Initiative, has been called the founding father of BCI.
