Thomas J. Oxley is the

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...

of Synchron and neurointerventionist at Mount Sinai Hospital in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Trained as a vascular and interventional neurologist, he established the Vascular Bionics laboratory at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

and is currently co-head of this lab. Oxley is best known for founding Synchron, a company building next-generation brain computer interface solutions that has recently announced the first clinical data on a novel stent electrode (Stentrode) neural interface that is inserted through blood vessels. The company was initiated sometime after hi
cold-call to DARPA
for funding, and has received substantial funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Ad ...

) and the Australian government to research this minimally-invasive neural interface technology.

Work in brain-computer interface

While Oxley has been conducting research in motor systems since 2003, he is said to have conceived the idea for the Stentrode™ in 2007 and he led the original team at the University of Melbourne that created the technology. Stentrode is the first motor neuroprosthesis, a form of brain-computer interface implanted via the patient's blood vessels. Oxley's team in Australia was the only non-US-based group funded by DARPA as part of the Reliable Neural-Interface Technology (RE-NET) program and led by Professor Jack Judy. Dr. Oxley announced in a 2018 TEDxSydney Talk that the company, Synchron, would initiate clinical trials of the Stentrode device with the goal of assisting paralyzed patients to regain independence. Just two years later, Oxley and Synchron published a first-in-human study on the device in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery. The study showed the ability of two Australians with ALS to email, text, shop, and bank online using the Stentrode Device, and was conducted at Royal Melbourne Hospital. Earlier in 2020, the company had announced that it received Breakthrough Device status from the US Food and Drug Administration (

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...

) for the Stentrode. Oxley's work has been published in major journals including Nature Biotechnology and New England Journal of Medicine, and he is the founder of three start-up companies: SmartStent (which was acquired by Synchron, Inc.), VascuLab and Synchron.

COVID-19 research

Oxley and his colleagues at Mt. Sinai reported an increased incidence of stroke identified in patients under 50 years of age with COVID-19, which was published in

New England Journal of Medicine ''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals as well as the oldest continuously published one. His ...

in April 2020.

Education

After earning bachelor's degrees in medical science, medicine and surgery from the

University of Monash Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...

in Melbourne Australia, Oxley earned doctorate degrees in philosophy and neuroscience from the

. His training included advanced MRI imaging analysis, hardware device (stent) development, and electrophysiological signal processing. Oxley completed residencies in both internal medicine and neurology, as well as a stroke fellowship. From 2015 – 2017, Oxley completed an endovascular neurosurgery fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York under Professor J. Mocco and Professor Alejandro Berenstein.

Scientific career

Dr Oxley has published 100 internationally peer reviewed articles
that have accumulated over 6500 citations, with 13 as first or last author and with an

H Index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

of 20.

Honors and awards

In 2018, Oxley won the 2018 Global Australian Advance Award Winner, an award given to celebrate international Australians who exhibit remarkable talent, exceptional vision and ambition, the UNESCO Netexplo award for Innovation, and was a finalist for the

Congress of Neurological Surgeons The Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) is a professional association representing neurosurgeons, neurosurgical residents, medical students, and allied health professionals. History World War II produced a dramatic change in the world of ne ...

Innovator of the Year Award. * 2020 Australian of the Year Award Finalist * 2018 GQ Australia Innovator of the Year finalist * 2018 Advance Global Overall Australian of the Year Award * 2018 Advance Global Australia Award for Life Sciences * 2018 Congress of Neurological Surgeons (USA), 2018 Innovator of the Year * 2018 UNESCO Netexplo award for Innovation, Paris, France * 2017 Chancellor's Prize for Excellence in a PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne * 2017 Dean's Award for Excellence in a PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne * 2017 International INDEX Design Awards Finalist, Stentrode, Copenhagen, Denmark * 2017 Graham Brown Best Publication Award, University of Melbourne * 2016 Premier's Award (Victoria) for Health and Medical Research (PhD) commendation * 2016 International Brain Computer Interface Award Finalist * 2016 SMART 100 companies * 2016 Nomination for University of Melbourne Chancellor's PhD Award * 2013 Warren Haynes Fellowship in Neurology * 2013 NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarship * 2013 Winner, MTGT Entrepreneurial Accelerator

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oxley, Thomas Monash University alumni University of Melbourne alumni University of Melbourne faculty Chief executives in the technology industry Australian neuroscientists 1980 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Nationality missing