The Swiss Research That Made a Paralyzed Man Walk Again (A Conversation with Jocelyne Bloch and Grégoire Courtine)

In this episode of Getting Serious, Woody sits down with Professor Grégoire Courtine, neuroscientist and bioengineer at EPFL, and Professor Jocelyne Bloch, neurosurgeon at the CHUV, to explore how targeted electrical stimulation of the spinal cord is helping people with severe paralysis stand and walk again.

Together, they co-direct .NeuroRestore, a joint research center in Lausanne where scientists and surgeons work side by side to develop technologies that restore lost neurological function. Their collaboration combines Courtine’s engineering approach to reactivating the nervous system with Bloch’s surgical expertise in implanting the technologies that make it work in real human patients.

The conversation covers the full arc of their journey: from animal models and regulatory hurdles to David, their first patient, who walked along the lake in Lausanne in 2017. They also discuss the spin-off company Onward, the challenge of funding deep-tech medtech in Switzerland, and their vision of combining electrical stimulation with gene therapy to one day cure paralysis altogether.

Their work is also a case study in what Switzerland makes possible: world-class research institutions, surgical expertise, and entrepreneurial ambition all within a few hundred meters of each other in Lausanne.

This episode is available on YouTube and Spotify.