Photo by: Heather Coit/The News-Gazette Aadeel Akhtar, CEO and co-founder of Psyonic, holds a later prototype of a prosthetic hand at his lab and office in Urbana on Friday, Feb. 26, 2016.

On Sundays, staff writer Paul Wood spotlights a high-tech difference maker. This week, meet AADEEL AKHTAR, 29, CEO and co-founder of Psyonic, which is working on advanced prostheses at costs that are affordable in the developing world.

FYI

He is an M.D./Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois. Right now, he's working with wounded veteran Garrett Anderson, a well-known local advocate for soldiers, on a hand that will have many of the features of a real one.

How do you find the sleep for a med school, your doctorate, starting up a new company and a new baby, Zain, 12 weeks?

(Laughs) I just try to make it work.

You work in the robotics lab. Can you have a robot help out with anything?

I'm still working on that. Maybe in the near future.

Did you always want to be an entrepreneur?

I always wanted to make sure that any research I do has an actual impact in the world. There are so many research problems that stay in the lab. The best way for the work we do in the lab to make an impact is to get it out to people who need it. This is for people in the developing world that can't afford the really, really high prices for prosthetic devices.

Where does your passion come from?

I have a lot of relatives in Pakistan, even though I grew up in the Chicago suburbs. When I was 7, that's when I actually met an amputee for the first time in my life. She was around my age, missing her right leg and hobbling toward me using a broken tree branch as a crutch. At the time, I thought, "We have the same ethnic heritage, but we have such different quality of life." As I grew older, I realized a lot of this was due to a lack of resources, and that spurred my interests in prosthetics.

Who is on your team?

The other co-founder is Patrick Slade, an undergraduate in mechanical engineering.

How is your work going with Garrett Anderson and with limbs for the developing nations?

It's still in the early stages. We put this hand on his socket and he controlled it using his muscles. All the information is still there in his body. We also collaborate with the Range of Motion Project, a nonprofit organization founded by a UI alumnus, David Krupa. He's based out of Ecuador and Guatemala. Their whole mission is to provide a more equitable distribution of prosthetic limbs to those who need them around the world.

How long have you been doing that?

That collaboration started in May 2014. He got really interested and sent us an email later that said the U.S. Embassy would fund two of us to go down to Ecuador to try out one of the hands we're developing on a patient. At the end of 2014, we had a man who had lost his arm 30 years prior in a border skirmish between Ecuador and Peru. With the new hand, he was doing grasps that he hadn't done in 30 years; his hand would make a pinch or a grasp. He said "it felt like a part of him had come back."

How does it cost to make one of these hands?

This one costs about $270, but it's not very robust. We're working on newer ones, a lot stronger, that are just under a grand to make. The new one has the same functionality as hands on the market that cost about $5,000 to $8,000 in raw materials, and they're selling them for about $30,000, which would not be viable in a developing nation. About 80 percent of amputees come from developing nations.

What's next for Psyonic?

We're building a new hand that will be one of the first to have sensory feedback. We're working with the same man, and I'm really excited that this will be the first time when he touches something and feels it with the new hand. We're trying to make it affordable. We use two barometric pressure sensors that cost less than $5 each, typically found in GPS equipment. We've turned them into very sensitive touch sensors. We can send current into their skin and stimulate their sensory nerves so they feel tingling, vibration and sometimes even pressure. Pain is a very important physiological signal — you don't want to break your hand all the time.

Tech tidbits ...

... from AADEEL AKHTAR

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: Psyonic.

Kindle? I do not use Kindle. I usually use Google books, on my phone. My phone's big enough to read comfortably.

What are you reading? "Steve Jobs," by Walter Isaacson.

Wearable electronics? Aside from the hand, no!