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The importance of being flexible

Nature Medicine volume 19, pages 1240–1244 (2013)Cite this article

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After a childhood in a family of university professors, during which I bred caterpillars and butterflies, grew bacteria on agar substrates, built radios and read many books, I wanted nothing more than to work in biomedical engineering from the age of 13 onwards. I wanted to make achievements in technology to improve human health and to contribute as much as I could to the development of mankind. To prepare for this, I started out studying medicine and electrical engineering in parallel and gave up medicine after two years because my main professor in electrical engineering at the Technical University in Vienna, Fritz Paschke, was the more eloquent and convincing role model.

A lot of luck is necessary in life, and I have had a good share of it, as I was allowed early on to focus on the topic that would fascinate me for my entire life. At 22, I was an able and fast student, applying to complete my electrical engineering studies earlier than was normally allowed, when my boyfriend Erwin, who later became my husband, asked me whether I wanted to join him to develop a cochlear implant at the Technical University in cooperation with the university Ear, Nose and Throat clinic.

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Figure 1: The first implantation of a multichannel microelectronic cochlear implant.
Figure 2: An important early patient.
Figure 3: The COMFORT System.
Figure 4: A unique case.
Figure 5: Multicenter study results with the implant COMBI 40.
Figure 6: More recent pioneer patients.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my closest research partner, my husband Erwin Hochmair, for the many years of joint research and other adventures. I also thank F. Paschke, former head of the General EE Department at the TU Vienna, for his support and encouragement, and the late K. Burian, former head of the ENT University Clinic Vienna, and his successors. I wish to acknowledge the early pioneer patients, in particular C.K., S.O., H.D. and M.H., who spent countless hours performing psychophysical and speech-perception tests in our lab. I thank C. Zierhofer, now professor at the University of Innsbruck, for all his creativity and friendship, B. Wilson for our fruitful collaboration and friendship, J. Helms, former head of the ENT University Clinic Würzburg, and the 50 investigators of the COMBI 40 clinical study. Most of our early work was funded by the Austrian Research Council.

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  1. Ingeborg Hochmair is the chief executive officer and chief technology officer of MED-EL Medical Electronics GmbH, Innsbruck, Austria.,

    Ingeborg Hochmair

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Correspondence to Ingeborg Hochmair.

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I.H. is the chief executive officer and chief technology officer of MED-EL.

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Hochmair, I. The importance of being flexible. Nat Med 19, 1240–1244 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3341

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