Deep Dive: 

Dr. Litt studied Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University and obtained his medical degree at Johns Hopkins University. When he started treating patients as a neurologist, he realized that the treatments that were available for patients with drug-resistant epilepsy were mostly based on traditional pharmacological interventions and had limited capacity to significantly change the course of the disease. The lack of alternatives for patients who were resistant to pharmacological treatments inspired him to research electrical stimulation as a new method to treat epilepsy, with the goal of preventing seizures to control the disease. 

A research grant from CURE Epilepsy in 2011 for "Flexible Implantable Devices for Epilepsy” was instrumental in the development of these technologies, and in defining Dr. Litt's research trajectory when he started his laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Litt´s laboratory collaborated with Dr. John Rogers, also at the University of Pennsylvania, who had developed the first flexible electrodes but had not tried implanting them in live tissue at the time. Together, their laboratories developed and tested the first brain implants incorporating active electronics for recording seizure activity and stimulating the brain to control seizures.