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David James Gow CBE (born 1957) is the inventor of the i-Limb prosthetic hand. He was made an honorary Doctor of Science in November 2018 by the University of Edinburgh.[ citation needed ]
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David James Gow CBE (born 1957) is the inventor of the i-Limb prosthetic hand. He was made an honorary Doctor of Science in November 2018 by the University of Edinburgh.[ citation needed ]
He was born in Dumfries in 1957 and was educated at Breconbeds School, Kirtlebridge, Annan Academy and the University of Edinburgh. He studied Mechanical Engineering from 1975 to 1979, graduating with BSc (Honours) in Engineering Science. He then worked for a year at Ferranti (Scotland) a defence contractor in Edinburgh. In January 1981 he began a research post at the University of Edinburgh lasting until 1984 when he transferred to the National Health Service (NHS). He managed the Rehabilitation Technology Services for NHS Lothian and was based at the SMART Centre in Edinburgh. [1]
He began a programme of research activities in the field of upper limb prosthetics. In 1998 he fitted a fellow Scot, Campbell Aird with an electrical arm prosthesis containing the world's first electrical shoulder. [2] In 2002 he founded and spun out the first company from the NHS, Touch EMAS Ltd and became its first CEO. He invented the i-limb and ProDigits partial hand system (later i-limb digits, now i-digits). He and his team from the company (which became Touch Bionics in 2005) won the MacRobert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008. [3] [4]
He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine and the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Gow was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to upper limb prosthetics. [5]
David retired from the NHS in April 2015.
He is married to Janet Brunton. His parents (both deceased) were James, and Effie (née Shankland), and he has an older sister Mary, and a younger brother, Iain. James, his father, served in the 2nd Battalion Royal Scots, and was captured by the Japanese in Hong Kong on Christmas Day 1941 - he was being transferred to Japan on the freighter Lisbon Maru when it was torpedoed and sank on the 2nd of October, 1942; he spent the remainder of the war in Japan, initially in Kobe House prisoner of war camp (Osaka #2). David is the maternal nephew of the late David Shankland, MBE, a former nursing tutor and well-known after-dinner speaker and Burns' enthusiast.
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Touch EMAS was founded by David Gow and was the first spin out company from Britain's National Health Service. Its intellectual property was based on the work of David Gow and his team at the Bioengineering Centre, Princess Margaret Rose Hospital, Edinburgh. It was awarded a SMART award in June 2002 to develop its articulating prosthetic hand which later became the i-Limb Hand. It received start up funding from the Edinburgh based Archangels syndicate in March 2003. It has been described as a world leader in upper limb prosthetic technologies.
The i-LIMB Hand is the brand name of world's first commercially available bionic hand invented by David Gow and his team at the Bioengineering Centre of the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital in Edinburgh, and manufactured by Touch Bionics. The articulating prosthetic hand has individually powered digits and thumb and has a choice of grips. The i-Limb Hand offers full hand solutions in addition to partial hand solutions. It was launched in Vancouver in July 2007. i-LIMB Hand won the Limbless Association's Prosthetic Product Innovation Award for 2008, was listed at number fourteen in the TIME's list of the Top 50 Best Inventions of 2008, and Touch EMAS/Touch Bionics was awarded The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation (Technology) (2010) for the i-LIMB Hand.
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