More than 320,000 people have regained their hearing since Graeme Clark invented cochlear implants in 1978. The revolutionary discovery has won him many awards, and now he has just been awarded the Lasker-DeBakey Medical Research Award, considered the American Nobel Prize.
Clark has shared the award with the two colleagues with whom he has developed cochlear implants, Ingeborg Hochmair and Blake S. Wilson, who have undoubtedly changed the lives of thousands of people, in Spain specifically some 9,000. Thanks to cochlear implants, many people have regained their normal life, they have regained the thrill of hearing their own voice or that of their children, they have regained a sense that is essential to their lives.
The Lasker-DeBakey awards are considered by many the American Nobel Prize, even sometimes they have been premonitory of these, we will see what happens on this occasion. You can find more information about this award and the winner in the GAES blog.