Robert Gregg works at the boundary between engineering and medicine. A postdoc at the Center for Bionic Medicine at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago in Illinois, Gregg received a 2012 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface in May for his work developing robotic control systems for prostheses. He explains how he will use the funds when he joins the bioengineering and mechanical engineering departments at the University of Texas, Dallas, next year.

Which came first — an interest in robots or in prosthetics?

I did a degree in electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and had an internship studying control principles of robotic walking. That sparked my interest in robots. I loved the Terminator movies and, at first, I was following the 'cool factor'. I went to graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign because it had a leading programme on control theory about the intelligence behind machines. I never intended to build killer robots, but I didn't understand until later how this research could help people.

How did you realize the potential for medical applications?

Credit: A. E. SCHULTZ

In my last year at graduate school, I was thinking about where I wanted to take my career. Then my father was diagnosed with heart failure. I had to take 2–3 months off while he waited for a transplant. The doctors told me about a surgical robot they were using; that helped me to realize that people could benefit from my research. So I decided to pursue biomedical engineering.

How did you get your postdoc?

I won one of five Engineering into Medicine fellowships at the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Science Institute (NUCATS) in Chicago. It was a one-time opportunity funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and happened at the right place and time for me. NUCATS was looking for people who could translate engineering principles into medical or biological research. It was the biggest turning point of my career: I was able to apply ideas from robotics and control theory to improve the performance of prosthetic devices. I'm experimenting with a prosthetic-leg controller that moves joints based on measurements of pressure to the sole of the foot. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought attention to the needs of amputees, but amputations are necessitated most frequently by disease, especially cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

What was most difficult about switching research cultures?

Moving into biomedicine was a leap, because no one in the field knew of my engineering research. I had no reputation in prosthetics and no knowledge of it, really. But the most difficult part was learning how to communicate with clinicians. The same words can mean completely different things. For example, 'control' means the intelligence behind a machine to an engineer, whereas clinicians use it to describe study patients who do not receive the experimental treatment.

Was the search for a job after your postdoc difficult?

This spring was a whirlwind. The market is rough — I applied for 35 faculty positions and it looked like nothing would pan out. Then I was approached by the University of Texas, Dallas. I also learned that I was a finalist for the Burroughs Wellcome award, which comes with US$500,000 to finish a postdoc and start a lab. In a two-day period, I got the award and the offer to start at Dallas in June 2013.

How does the award help your career?

It will let me hire personnel in biomedical and mechanical engineering, and to start off with expensive research. I am eyeing a treadmill that costs more than some houses. It measures the forces that human feet transfer to the ground, to analyse the performances of prostheses. I think of my lab as a start-up company — I have investors; now I have to prove that my vision for robot-assisted walking can be achieved.