Michael Berger

Oct 4, 2024 | nature.com | Maarten WJ Fornerod |Deedra Nicolet |Benjamin Kelly |Krzysztof Mrózek |Jean F. Kloppers |Anne-Cecilia van Marle | +21 more

AbstractGenomic profiles and prognostic biomarkers in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) from ancestry-diverse populations are underexplored. We analyzed the exomes and transcriptomes of 100 patients with AML with genomically confirmed African ancestry (Black; Alliance) and compared their somatic mutation frequencies with those of 323 self-reported white patients with AML, 55% of whom had genomically confirmed European ancestry (white; BeatAML).

Aug 23, 2023 | nature.com | Jessie Liu |Michael Berger |Edward F. Chang |David A. Moses

Speech neuroprostheses have the potential to restore communication to people living with paralysis, but naturalistic speed and expressivity are elusive1. Here we use high-density surface recordings of the speech cortex in a clinical-trial participant with severe limb and vocal paralysis to achieve high-performance real-time decoding across three complementary speech-related output modalities: text, speech audio and facial-avatar animation. We trained and evaluated deep-learning models using neural data collected as the participant attempted to silently speak sentences. For text, we demonstrate accurate and rapid large-vocabulary decoding with a median rate of 78 words per minute and median word error rate of 25%. For speech audio, we demonstrate intelligible and rapid speech synthesis and personalization to the participant’s pre-injury voice. For facial-avatar animation, we demonstrate the control of virtual orofacial movements for speech and non-speech communicative gestures. The decoders reached high performance with less than two weeks of training. Our findings introduce a multimodal speech-neuroprosthetic approach that has substantial promise to restore full, embodied communication to people living with severe paralysis. A study using high-density surface recordings of the speech cortex in a person with limb and vocal paralysis demonstrates real-time decoding of brain activity into text, speech sounds and orofacial movements.