“The device electronically restores normal signals to the brain,” explains Anthony DiMarco, M.D., Synapse’s chief medical officer and professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine.

Dr. DiMarco and partners Anthony Ignagni, president and chief biomedical engineer, and Raymond Onders, M.D., director of minimally invasive surgery at University Hospitals Health System, explain that, depending on where it occurs, paralysis can shut down the electrical connection between the brain and muscles controlling respiration. The breathing muscles are still able to function, but they’re not told to do so. The Synapse device acts as a bridge on the body’s electrical grid, completing that interrupted signal.

This technology could significantly improve the lives of some 250 permanently paralyzed patients a year—but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. “We can leverage it into other populations, such as the 1.6 million patients who need respirators in acute care,” says Ignagni.

While most of these patients will eventually come off a ventilator, the average time they require mechanical assistance is 36 days.

“If we can get them off [the ventilator] sooner, they’re back on their feet faster, with a decreased chance of developing pneumonia,” Dr. DiMarco notes.

Other applications for the technology include chronic pelvis pain in women and gastro-esophageal reflux disease. Through minimally invasive laparascopic surgery, Synapse has steadily reduced implantation time, now down to a couple of hours.

A half-dozen patients, including Reeve, have received the device since 2000. The first of these patients has now spent three years without a ventilator. While the efficacy has been proven, the technology is still under standard FDA investigation, a process known for its complexity and rigor.

Still seeking additional funding, Synapse hopes to conduct clinical studies in 2005 and bring the first device to market by 2006 or 2007. “Our goal is to have a 140-person staff right here [in Oberlin] by 2008,” says Dr. Onders.

Reprinted from COSE Update magazine