Neuralink is currently looking to hire a clinical trial director, a sign that the company’s long-term goal of implanting chips into the human brain is getting closer.
According to the job announcement, the clinical trial director will oversee human trials, which has long been promised by the startup for its product. The Neuralink implant – which Musk stated has enabled a monkey to play video games using its thoughts – aims to help treat patients with neurological disorders, such as paralysis.
The new technology will help seamlessly integrate humans with computers.
The job description indicates that the position is based at the headquarters in Fremont, California, promising that the candidate will “collaborate closely with the most innovative doctors and leading engineers” as well as with “the first participants in Neuralink’s clinical trials”. Job requirements suggest that the candidate must be capable of managing and building “the management team and overseeing Neuralink’s clinical research operations” as well as ensuring compliance with regulations.
Last month, Musk told the Wall Street Journal that Neuralink hopes to implant its device into a human brain by 2022. However, he may have made overly optimistic predictions, as in the past. In 2019, he stated in a presentation that the device would be in a human skull the following year.
According to the billionaire, the new technology will help seamlessly integrate humans with computers, allowing humans to “symbiotically” coexist with AI.
To be tested on humans, the first hurdle manufacturers must overcome is obtaining approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to recognize that the trial is feasible. After the submission, review, and approval process with the FDA based on the feasibility trial, the next step will be to test the critical device.
It is unclear exactly where Neuralink stands in this process. Representatives from Neuralink and the FDA have not responded to inquiries. Generally, manufacturers tend to hire trial directors early when interacting with the FDA to help design trials in a way that maximizes the chances of FDA approval. Neuralink does not appear to have any human trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (an important website for clinical trial information). However, posting on that site may slow down the process of selecting the first patients.
Last year, another company researching brain-computer interfaces, Synchron, announced that the FDA had approved the feasibility of their research plan. A spokesperson stated that Synchron is currently in the phase of recruiting volunteers.
Neuralink is also hiring a clinical trial coordinator and several other positions at its Fremont headquarters.
