
Professor Max Ortiz Catalán, Senior Research Scientist
Professor Max Ortiz Catalán is the head of the Neural Prosthetics Research Program at the Bionics Institute.
In additional to his role at the Bionics Institute, he is also the founder and director at the Center for Bionics and Pain Research (CBPR) in Sweden – a multidisciplinary engineering and medical collaboration between Chalmers University of Technology, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, and Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg. He is also a full Professor of Bionics at Chalmers University of Technology.
Professor Ortiz Catalán’s mission is to develop and clinically implement technologies to eliminate disability and pain due to sensorimotor impairment.
The Bionics Institute and CBPR are now working closely together to this mission.
Professor Ortiz Catalán has created several biomedical innovations, including the first bionic limb anchored to the skeleton with long-term stable neural control and sensory feedback used in daily life, as well as novel treatments for neuropathic pain that are currently used worldwide.
He is regarded as a world leader in prosthetics and phantom limb pain.
A prominent scientist who has authored over 100 scientific publications, including articles in prestigious journals such as the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, and others in the Nature and Science families, Professor Ortiz Catalán is the first or last author in over 80% of his publications, indicating his direct involvement in the published work.
Professor Ortiz Catalán has received several international awards for innovation and scientific relevance; been the keynote speaker at the leading conferences in his field and guest speaker at over 100 international conferences and universities worldwide.
Several documentaries and over 100 popular science articles in over a dozen languages have featured his work.
ORCID: 0000-0002-6084-3865
Google Scholar: Professor Max Ortiz Catalán
Top publications
- Ortiz-Catalan M., Mastinu E., Sassu P., Aszmann O., and Brånemark R., Neuromusculoskeletal arm prostheses, New England Journal of Medicine, 2020, 382(18):1732-1738
- Middleton A., and Ortiz-Catalan M., Neuromusculoskeletal limb prostheses: personal and social implications of living with an intimately integrated bionic arm, Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 2020, 14:3.
- Ortiz-Catalan M., Håkansson B., and Brånemark R., Osseointegrated human-machine gateway for long-term stable sensory feedback and motor control of artificial limbs, Science Translational Medicine, 2014, 257re6.
- Ortiz-Catalan M., Brånemark R., and Håkansson B., BioPatRec: A modular research platform for the control of artificial limbs based on pattern recognition algorithms, Code Source for Medicine and Biology, 2013, 8:11.
- Ortiz-Catalan M., Engineering and surgical advancements enable more cognitively integrated bionic arms, Science Robotics, 2021, 6:eabk3123.