Battelle Medical Devices Updates

Patrick Ganzer, Ph.D., is advancing medicine at the interface between the nervous system and technology. His work is helping patients recovering from spinal cord injuries, stroke and other nervous system disorders regain lost function and independence. Patrick joined Battelle in May of 2017 as a Neurotechnology Research Scientist. He is working on the cutting edge of bioelectric medicine, neural stimulation, neural signal processing and brain/machine interface technologies. Currently, much of his time is devoted to extending the applications for Battelle NeuroLife®, an innovative technology that bypasses the damaged portion of the spinal cord to give patients who have been paralyzed by spinal cord injuries conscious control over their limbs. 

Gaurav Sharma’s work has helped a paralyzed patient regain control of his hand and enabled delivery of drugs across the blood-brain barrier. As the Lead Investigator and Senior Research Scientist on the Battelle Medical Devices and Neuromodulation team, he is applying advanced engineering to overcome problems in the human body and brain. Since joining Battelle in 2011, Gaurav has served as the technical lead or lead investigator on a number of cutting-edge projects involving peripheral nerve stimulation, spinal cord stimulation and brain-computer interfaces. For the last six years, he has devoted most of his time to Battelle NeuroLife®, a groundbreaking neural bridging technology for patients with spinal cord injuries. In addition to overseeing continued clinical trial work and technology refinement, he is now focused on developing further applications of the technology. Beyond spinal cord injury, he sees potential benefits for stroke and traumatic brain injury patients and other types of sensory-motor rehabilitation. 

Jennifer Simkins has more than a decade of experience as a visual designer working within the healthcare and consumer industries. Her UX/UI design experience includes integrating user-centered analysis throughout the design process to inform design decisions, the development of wireframes and functional designs based on user task analyses, visual design of graphical user interfaces (GUIs), development of interactive prototypes, and the documentation of style guides/human interface guidelines for product development.

Annie Diorio-Blum spends a good part of her time trying to get inside people’s heads. From surgical teams in the operating room to patients managing chronic conditions at home, she brings the voice of the end user to the medical device design process. Annie is a Senior Industrial Designer on the Battelle Human Centric Design team. She has more than 12 years of experience in medical device design and product development. Over the years, she has applied her expertise across every part of the product development cycle, from initial design requirements to human factors testing for FDA submissions. More recently, she has focused her efforts on contextual research to inform the early stages of design and development. 

From drug delivery devices to surgical equipment, William G. (Bill) Atterbury is the technical leader behind numerous medical devices on the market today. A Research Leader and design engineer on the medical devices team, he has devoted his career to finding practical, innovative solutions for challenging technical problems in the medical device field. Over his 36-year career at Battelle, Bill has helped to bring hundreds of medical devices to market and generated more than 30 U.S. patents. This track record has earned him recognition as a Battelle Distinguished Inventor, a distinction shared with only a small number of colleagues. In 2013, he was named Battelle Inventor of the Year for his numerous contributions to the medical device field. Currently, he is applying his engineering expertise to the drug delivery market. As part of the Engineered Delivery Device Initiative (EDDI) team at Battelle, Bill is working on cutting-edge drug delivery projects funded through Battelle’s internal research and development programs.

Meeting cybersecurity requirements for sale of medical devices to federal agencies can be complicated. Battelle’s Kevin Stoffell is helping manufacturers navigate the process and make effective systems architecture decisions. Kevin is a Cybersecurity Architect in Battelle’s Cyber Innovations business. In this role, he provides technical support and guidance for federal and commercial clients who need to make sure their products meet federal Risk Management Framework (RMF) requirements for secure design. While his experience spans all kinds of technology products, he sees a growing need for these services in the medical device industry. The RMF consists of a set of detailed standards encompassing many different aspects of cybersecurity (including general controls, cryptography, operational controls and public key infrastructure).  A key part of Kevin’s role is helping clients understand the requirements of the specific agencies they want to sell to and develop strategies to meet them in a cost-effective manner.