Lister Medal recipient transforming lives

Britain’s most prestigious prize in surgery – the Lister Medal – has been awarded to cochlear implant research pioneer, Professor Graeme Clark AC. He becomes only the third Australian to receive this honour in the medal’s 86-year history. Clark is distinguished professor at La Trobe University where he has opened the Centre for Bionic Ear and NeuroSensory Research which spearheads the development of the next generation high-fidelity bionic ear. He carried out his pioneering research initially at the University of Sydney and then at the University of Melbourne during the 1970s. The resulting cochlear implant became the first means of providing speech understanding to profoundly deaf children and adults.