The National Institute of Health (NIH) has awarded the perfect and rarely achieved impact score to Prof. Deblina Sarkar for her NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2) proposal. She achieved an impact score of “10” which is the highest score possible. The summary statement from the NIH panel mentioned that Prof. Sarkar’s proposed technology “has the potential to herald a new era."

While commenting on the creative potential of the investigator, an NIH reviewer noted that the “PI is clearly extremely creative” and the proposal read “almost like something from a science fiction novel.”

“Winning the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award was already exciting. Achieving the perfect impact score on this award proposal is absolutely thrilling!”  said Deblina Sarkar. “This award will support our work in developing a new generation of biomedical devices that defy the need for any surgery,” she added.

“Deblina's work holds the promise to revolutionize how electronic devices and biological systems communicate.  The NIH Director's Innovator Award is a fantastic recognition of her vision and will enable her to make it reality, with great potential impact across the scope of human disease,”  said Ed Boyden, the Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT and an HHMI investigator.