The Role of A Surgeon in Restoring the Senses & in Biomedical Engineering

This review is based on my 2025 Jepson Lecture and outlines my personal journey to restore hearing in people with a severe sensorineural hearing loss. My dream started as a 5-year-old as I told my kindergarten teacher when I grow up 'I want to fix ears' because my father is deaf. The journey resulted in a career in surgery followed by auditory neuroscience, engineering and audiology. While the key stages in the development of the multi-channel cochlear implant are highlighted, their importance in discovering the first restoration of a human sense, and in understanding brain function is presented as well. The discoveries also underpin the development of modern neural interfaces in general that restore human function. And so, a new discipline in biomedical engineering has emerged.