Science
A big problem for most prosthetics is they don’t send sensory information back to the brain. Until now. Dr. Ranu Jung and her team at Florida International University (FIU) have developed a device that restores the sense of touch and hand grasp when someone is using their prosthetic hands. This technology could eventually be applied to other non-functioning parts of the body. A finalist for the 2020 Cade Prize for Innovation, Dr. Jung is head of the Biomedical Engineering Department at FIU, and the holder of multiple patents. Dr. Jung, who immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1983, credits the “can-do” spirit of her parents for her persistence and sense of discovery. *This episode is a re-release.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from The Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We'll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We'll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles (00:40): A neural enabled prosthesis. That is a hand that actually feels like a hand for people who have lost them. Welcome to Radio Cade, I'm your host Richard Miles. Today I'll be talking to Dr. Ranu Jung professor and chair of the biomedical engineering department at Florida International University. The holder of multiple patents and a finalist for this year's Cade Prize for Innovation. Congratulations and welcome to Radio Cade, Dr. Jung. Dr. Ranu Jung (01:04): Thank you, Richard, for giving me this opportunity to be on Radio Cade. I'm excited about talking to you. Richard Miles (01:10): So Ranu, if it's okay. If I call you Ranu, you've been at Florida International University for about 10 years now, but you've also spent time at Arizona State University, University of Kentucky and Case Western University in Cleveland. But you started life in New Delhi, India and came to the United States in 1983. So the first thing I'd like to ask, you've had a very illustrious career in academia, but I'm very curious about what was your first impression of the United States? What did you think when you stepped off the plane, were you excited to, do you think you'd made a really big mistake? Dr. Ranu Jung (01:42): That's a long time ago, but I was excited because I was going to be able to follow a dream and I had come specifically to follow biomedical engineering. So I came into New York and I actually drove with a family friend from New York to Cleveland. And so what a way to get welcomed to the United States going across the whole of the East coast to the Midwest. It was just absolutely, absolutely fantas