After her examination, I remember running down the street to offer her a position. Lois did a great job to help develop tests and evaluate Rod in the next months.
It must have been about mid when the initial results were being presented. Someone said when I had used film, I had altered the sync between the lip-reading and the speech, such was the scepticism. So it did need quite a lot of proof. But that is one thing that we did do. I was convinced that right way was to operate on a small number of people — in this case, at first one — and do this testing thoroughly.
Not to skimp the testing. That proved, I believe, to be the right approach because then one could show the sceptics what the results were scientifically.
But it did take quite a lot of time. It was not until July that I was prepared to operate on a second person, George Watson, to show that it was valid for other patients.
At the same time, when I went to the press to say that we were getting some interesting results, I got approached by 3M. They are a well-known company who were interested in medical technology at that stage.
They wanted to do something simple like the House single-channel implant. I wished they had offered money. I had to get money from some source and I turned to the Commonwealth Government of Australia. I was very fortunate that they had a new public interest scheme that was prepared to fund new, potentially interesting and commercially relevant research projects. That meant that they were prepared to fund our research back in , after the initial results on Rod had come through.
They did a wonderful job. I think they are an exemplar on how to fund this sort of research: one year at a time. They give you some money. Soon after these initial exciting results, we were planning to do its commercial development. It was then made as a commercial device in I remember that well because I was a medical student and I was sitting here, watching the surgery. The whole focus changed when there was commercial involvement. How did that change the focus of your research?
That is a very important and fundamental question that nowadays is even more relevant than it was then. I have personal views on the subject about fundamental research and commercial research. Firstly, having been criticised for not doing pure enough research, it is odd that I am now someone who advocates more pure research rather than applied research. But I felt a commitment to bridging that divide. There was more research to do. On the other hand, there was a responsibility and a need to get the device out into the marketplace as soon as possible.
The first people that came wanted help. I felt a need to direct some important areas of research with Cochlear Pty Ltd or Nucleus Limited, as it was, towards the commercial outcomes, but at the same time to keep the research going here at the University of Melbourne.
That is a different ball game, as you know. So initially there was a very close relationship between me personally, the research here and Cochlear, as it became. But, as the company grew, it needed to be more industrially relevant.
It had to have a wider audience. It was a learning experience for me as an academic. It was something that I now realise that academics need to be involved in.
It was new for me and it was new even for the University of Melbourne. We took out patents through the University of Melbourne. It was not the first time but near the first time that the University of Melbourne had taken patents out on a development. So it was a new and learning experience but one, I think now looking back, that can benefit both. It can benefit the university and it can benefit research to have that collaboration.
But it is not easy when it gets to a mature situation, because companies then can feel themselves mature. Arguably, the next pivotal event in the development of the cochlear implant was to bring this treatment to children. Can you tell us about what challenges that brought? I always started with the idea that I particularly wanted to help deaf children. That was my real special motivation. They have such a lot of life ahead of them, and it has such a profound effect on their language.
The challenges were, firstly, solved in a way by our operating on adults. I was not prepared to experiment with children with things that could be tackled and established on adults. There were vibrotactile devices and electrotactile devices that were seen as just as good.
So why do a cochlear implant on a child? One had to address all of those difficulties. In my office, in the s, I sat with Professor Dan Ling, who was a well known audiologist. The consensus was that you cannot accurately diagnose a hearing loss in a child less than four years of age with the behavioural tests. In which case, one should be careful about operating on children. Field and I would go and work in the lab until all hours of the morning.
We were trying to see what the brains of the experimental animals would do with a modulated, varied signal. It was amplitude and frequency modulated. Then, after some while, Field felt that the best way to go was to do a Fourier analysis on it. I was for looking at the frequency variations, but I think Field was right. We used amplitude modulation to decide what the thresholds were at the low frequencies. Now, that needs a little bit of explanation.
At the time auditory testing was not effective in children for the low frequencies, for different reasons, and it was crucial to know those frequency losses before doing a cochlear implant.
At about the time we were ready to operate on younger children, our findings were starting to be accepted. So that was one problem. The second question was to determine whether we should use tactile stimulation instead, and I really tried to have a bet both ways. While developing the research for cochlear implants for children, I also encouraged research on tactile stimulation.
That had its own problems. The first problem was that vibrators for converting speech into stimulation were too heavy, too big and too power hungry. I had a private grant from an industrialist to do this research, and on the last day of the work, when it looked as though it was going to go nowhere, I offered my arm sacrificially to doing the experiments. I noted that, when the electrical stimuli stimulated the medial cutaneous nerve of my forearm, it was pleasant enough and not painful.
That meant putting two and two together and stimulating the nerves on either side of the fingers as being more acceptable. I found this true when I tested it out on our young son, who was also a sacrificial subject. It gave the best results of any around the world, and looked like it might be the right way to go. But at the same time, perhaps for other brain processing reasons, the cochlear implant results started to get a little better and better. It took quite a long while though before it became clear that language was being benefited by the cochlear implant in children.
The educators of the deaf played a key role in helping to develop the language in children and also in its assessment.
We had done a lot of testing with psychological and educational tests, but the tests are somewhat stereotyped and not personal. Some of those announcements were not well received by all sectors of the community. How did the conversation with those people develop? I remember it well. It was very traumatic in some ways. It was surprising to me in the first instance.
Having done this work for adults, having shown that it was safe, having shown that it would work; I was really being enthusiastic now about helping children. But in trying to give signing children hearing with a cochlear implant the Signing Deaf Community, in particular, said that I was bad, or even worse. It affected the team. I had to encourage them and give them moral support, while all this criticism was going on. It was really quite traumatic and quite unfair in some ways. It came mainly from the signing community.
I had been involved with this debate ever since I had been setting up and chairing the Deafness Foundation of Victoria in I knew there was a real issue with the educational method. But to have it brought home so personally was really a challenge, and it continued on. It got a little less as the years went by. But Margaret was very supportive, as she was with the other work. How about the children that received a cochlear implant?
How did they influence the conversation with the deaf community, or how did they influence opinion within the deaf community? The children that had it early enough have now grown up and they are wonderful. They have grown into self-reliant, mature individuals.
One boy, if he is not a soccer player, wants to be a lawyer. Sophie Li is another great advocate for what impact implants have made in their lives.
All of children that I know have not deteriorated or rejected it. They have found that it has added to their lives, and they have become very mature individuals. In many cases, even competing well with hearing children.
Have you had conversations with any of the children that received implants about how their cochlear implants were viewed within the deaf community? In the early phases, yes, one did discuss with them how they were treated.
Initially, they were seen not as outcasts, but they were not treated with welcoming arms. They were seen as being on the opposite side. That was in the early stages, but that changed. When it became clear that they could communicate so well with hearing people, that criticism changed.
I must say that it surprised me how well these children do with language when they are operated on at a young age. It blows my mind. I went and saw some of the children out at Mount View Primary who have been taught to communicate in a fairly normal situation. In fact, seven years ago we made a film of this group of children and, just recently, we made another film of the same group showing them seven years later, and they are just inspirational. Can you reflect on being a researcher and a clinician?
Have you any advice for young people, who aspire to follow in your footsteps, on how they could develop their careers? It is a very important question: to what extent can a practising clinician, a surgeon in this case, be accepted as a basic scientist?
It is not easy to be both. I remember Peter Bishop, professor of physiology at Sydney University, said that it was almost impossible to be both. Particularly today you have such big demands doing basic research and such big commitments doing clinical work. I think it is still possible to do both, but it means that one should be a basic scientist and at least be accepted into the basic scientific community, perhaps in a niche area, but certainly in a clear area where one is able to make a contribution.
At the same time, specialise in one area of medicine. And it is not even possible for people in practice full time. So I think it is possible, but it is not easy. One of the difficulties too is that, in practice, one has to be on call for patients, whereas, in basic research, you have to give so much time to writing papers and grant applications.
I believe that my research training has enriched me enormously. I learned to respect them because they spend a lot of time doing that. I think it has helped me to try to be more rigorous with my clinical research as well. I now see that they both complement each other. A much respected senior colleague of mine, who trained in medicine at Sydney University and went into a research career, he too, says how enriching his medical training was to his research background.
I think the same applies. For me, I have tended to see most things through a neurophysiological filter as well as a surgical filter. What do you think we need to do as a nation to help young doctors who want to go into research? I think we have to make opportunities for them and we have to provide the funds for them to do this. There need to be more opportunities for them to develop their talents, and we need to reward them and to pick the ones that want to do it. I have tried to encourage some, over the years, to do research, but, if they are only half hearted, it is not good enough.
Research, as you know, is a demanding career. What has helped you to maintain the fire in the belly? When you become a successful leader in research or as a professor or a clinician, there are many things that weigh upon your time.
There are many political and administrative concerns, and one is always fighting for money. So what is it that kept you passionate through all of these challenges? I was amazed when I got involved there were so many other distracting areas like politics, fund-raising, interaction with colleagues and various bureaucratic delays and challenges. They can be very frustrating. My response has been single-minded, pig-headed and focused on trying to keep the distractions aside and to focus on the main game.
Professor Graeme Clark, thank you very much for your time today. Your single-mindedness has brought hearing and the gift of communication, language and speech to thousands of people around the world. We thank you very much for this great gift and we thank you for your contribution to Australian science.
Thank you for your comments and encouragement. I do thank not only you, but colleagues and Australians. Australians have a lot to offer, if we can get the adequate support that we see sometimes in other countries.
Donate Contact us Login Register. Search website. Childhood inspirations Childhood is an inspirational time, so what influences from your childhood developed your passion to help people today? Can you reflect upon your days in boarding school and any influences there? Back to top Speak Up! Thinking vs Doing Doctors When you went to medical school, did you still want to become an ear doctor, or had some other specialty, like cardiology, taken your interests?
Back to top Place coding As your PhD evolved, you no doubt became aware of other people working in the field. Even when you were doing a PhD, the idea of place coding was in your mind? Chair of Otolaryngology: telethons and tin cans What was the next pivotal event in your career that allowed you to carry these ideas forward?
Critics abound On the floor, in the laboratory, it was happy times. Blamey, G. Dooley, G. Clark, P. Xu, J. Xu, H. Seddon, F. Neilson, G. Clark, R. Vandali and G. Clark, L. Cohen and P. MD , Medizinishche Hochschule, Germany. Blamey, H. McDermott, B. Swanston, J. Patrick and G. DSc , University of Wollongong. LLD , Monash University. Charles Holland Foundation International Prize received. Career position - Lead Research Scientist in establishing the State Government of Victoria's Science, Technology and Innovation STI program, with the aim of bringing research and industry together to produce industrial outcomes.
It funded the Graeme Clark Chair in Audiology and Speech Science, and helped to sustain research and support into bionic ear and medical bionics generally. Department of Otolaryngology, The University of Melbourne - ? La Trobe University - Graeme Clark was appointed the first Distinguished Professor to La Trobe University in , where he studied in depth the temporal bone of his first patient, and learned more about the effects of implantation on the inner ear.
Related Cultural Artefacts Automatic Brain Wave Audiometer - Multi-channel Cochlear Implant Bionic Ear - Graeme Clark led the research team which developed the first prototype fully implantable multi-channel cochlear implant.
Tickle Talker c. Black, Raymond C. Black co-authored several publications with Graeme Clark. Blamey, Peter J. Peter Blamey collaborated with Graeme Clark on pyschoacoustics and spoken language development. Busby, Peter A. Peter Busby collaborated with Graeme Clark on audiology.
Forster, Ian C. Ian Forster co-authored several publications with Graeme Clark on engineering. Kapsa, Robert Robert Kapsa and Graeme Clark worked together on the bionics, and particularly the organic chemistry, to develop an improved bionic ear.
McDermott, Hugh J. Hugh McDermott collaborated with Graeme Clark. Seligman, Peter M. Peter Seligman collaborated with Graeme Clark on engineering.
Vandali, Andrew E. Andrew Vandali collaborated with Graeme Clark on engineering. Wallace, Gordon - Graeme Clark and Gordon Wallace worked closely on the bionics of the intellegent polymers and the biological application of the chemistry, and, the release of nerve growth factors. Date: c. Details Interview with Prof. Details Papers of Graeme M. Details Presentation plaque incorporating bionic ear circuit board [Peter Howson collection], ; National Museum of Australia. Details Private hands Clark, G.
In , the first cochlear implant surgery took place. And he and his dedicated team discovered in how speech could be coded with multi-channel electrical stimulation. From his success, Cochlear Limited was born. Today, hundreds of thousands of severely or profoundly deaf children and adults worldwide have received a cochlear implant from Cochlear.
Professor Clark is still actively involved in the advancement of cochlear implants. In , he founded and directed until , The Bionic Ear Institute , an independent, non-profit, medical research organisation that partnered with the University of Melbourne and Cochlear. In this role he is helping to develop mathematical models of the brain pathways for sound and improved cochlear implants. Together, Professor Clark and Cochlear continue to explore new avenues in technology and deliver first-to-market innovations that help the deaf hear with more clarity and ease.
Cochlear Foundation launches global partnership with Malala Fund to remove hearing loss as a barrier to education - 22 September, We use cookies to give an enhanced, personalised service on our site, our communications and available downloads. By clicking on "Close" you accept our use of cookies as outlined in our Cookie Policy.
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