Irvine : UCI Applies for Grant to Recruit Scientist

UC Irvine has applied for a federal research grant as part of its efforts to recruit a noted scientist who developed a system to help paraplegics walk, a university official said Tuesday.

Negotiations that began in June with Dr. Jerrold Petrofsky of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, are continuing, according to Linda Granell, UCI’s director of communications.

The 38-year-old Petrofsky, whose life and work were the basis for the television movie “First Steps,” has been appointed to the UCI medical school clinical faculty--an unpaid, volunteer position--as a part of the recruiting process, according to Granell, who said such an affiliation is required for the university to seek a grant on Petrofsky’s behalf.

“That way, if he did decide to come here in September, the funding for his research would already be in place,” Granell said.

While serving as a director of the National Center for Rehabilitation at Wright State, Petrofsky developed the Functional Electronic Stimulation system, which uses bursts of low-level current to force paralyzed muscles to contract.

A computer dictates the pattern for the contractions and patients, who must wear conductive clothing and use walkers, canes or crutches, have been able to stand, walk and climb stairs.