By Abraham Swee

From Penn to Harvard to MIT, faculty researchers are chasing solutions that often sound out of reach. Tackling cancer, energy and disability, the following big ideas trace their roots to university labs, places that have afforded some of America’s brightest minds the space — and time — to pursue life-changing ideas.

Bionic limbs

In 1982, a 17-year-old mountain climber lost both his legs to frostbite. Fitted with his first prosthetics, Hugh Herr was disappointed with the available tech: limbs made from wood and rubber. Four decades later, he’s created, and is wearing, the future.

At the MIT Media Lab, the engineer and biophysicist is at the forefront of bionic limbs. Herr’s creations connect directly to the body's own nerves and muscles, allowing users to control their prosthetics by thought and feel them as a natural extension of the body. The tech sometimes spurs highly emotional responses: Patients often laugh or cry, Herr says, describing the limb for the first time as alive.

It’s a feat he’s hardly developed alone. Working alongside geneticists, tissue engineers, and roboticists, Herr says that if you’re going to reengineer the human body, you’ll need a robust team. “The important questions today in the world don’t exist within a single discipline … the solutions to problems exist between disciplines."

Commercial availability to bionic limbs, Herr estimates, is about five years away. It’s all part of his quest to help humanity eliminate physical disability by the end of this century. “If there is an unwanted disability, it's the limitation not of the human but of the built world of technology.”