Cyberkinetics

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Dummy unit illustrating the design of a BrainGate interface

Cyberkinetics is an American company. It was cofounded by John Donoghue, Mijail Serruya, and Gerhard Friehs of Brown University and Nicho Hatsopoulos of the University of Chicago. Their work helped develop early-stage bionics in the form of implantable electronic devices and now spinoff Cyberkinetics is taking the technology several steps further. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a clinical trial to implant the BrainGate technology into five severely disabled patients to determine if they can use the technology to send simple computer commands through channeled thought. Scientists behind the project used $9.3 million in first round funding led by Oxford Bioscience Partners. A 2002 merger with Bionic Technologies, co-founded by Brian Hatt and Richard Normann (the inventor of the Utah Array) added to a tech team armed with intellectual property rights gained from Brown, MIT, and others. They say they're three to five years away from putting a product on the market.

In late 2004, Cyberkinetics initiated a reverse merger with a Texas company in order to gain access to the public market. The resulting company was renamed Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology, Inc and its shares are listed under the symbol CYKN.OB.