About the Oration

The Graeme Clark Oration informs the community about scientific advances in health and medical research, delivered by recognised global leaders in their field. The oration was established in honour of Graeme Clark who discovered how to code speech with electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve and brain pathways to restore hearing to over 600,00 severely-to-profoundly deaf people in more than 100 countries.

 

The inaugural Graeme Clark Oration was held in October, 2008 and delivered by Professor Graeme Clark. This talk titled A Partnership in Research Leading to the Bionic Ear and Beyond presented a history of the development of the bionic ear by Professor Clark and his team, and the partnership between people and disciplines necessary to achieve this.  It was attended by 250 people.  The Oration Dinner, attended by 130 invited guests, heard addresses from several of Professor Clark’s colleagues who developed the bionic ear and several bionic ear recipients.

You may view all past orations and read a short summary of each event here.

About Graeme Clark

Pioneering research

Graeme Clark is responsible for the pioneering research and development of the Bionic Ear – a multiple-channel Cochlear Implant. The Cochlear Implant has brought hearing and speech understanding to over 200,000 people with a severe-to-profound hearing loss, in more than 80 countries. His research resulted in the first clinically successful interface between the world of sound and human consciousness and has paved the way for many advances in the areas of physical and biological sciences for health care.

 

Graeme Milbourne Clark was born on 16 August 1935 in the New South Wales country town of Camden. His father, Colin, the local pharmacist, had suffered from deafness some years before Graeme was born. As a young boy, Graeme assisted his father to dispense medicines and serving at the front counter. His early experience with a severely deaf father was the catalyst for his effort to do something about assisting people suffering from deafness. His first primary school teacher, Mrs Pat Hider (now Colman) recalls Graeme telling her that when he grew up he wanted “to fix ears”. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

 

Inspired by an article he read in the 1960s about attempts in the United States to electrically stimulate hearing, Graeme left his Ear, Nose and Throat practice in Melbourne to become a research student at the University of Sydney. At 34 years of age, Graeme was appointed as the Foundation Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne, the first such chair in Australasia, making him the youngest clinical professor in Australia.

 

 

       “There were many times during the early stages of my involvement with the bionic ear that I could have given up, but didn’t. In spite of problems, criticisms and difficulties I felt that I just had to go on to explore the possibilities to the very end. Someone had to do it, because it was the only chance that profoundly deaf people could have of being able to hear.”

 

Professor Graeme Clark AC

 

Professor Graeme Clark was the first person to develop the multi-channel cochlear implant and to have successfully performed the world’s first implant procedure on Mr Rod Saunders in August 1978, at Melbourne’s Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. In 1985, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first multi-channel cochlear implant. Since that first procedure in 1978, over 5,000 people in Australia and over 200,000 people around the world have received the multi-channel cochlear implant and the gift of hearing. Having restored hearing to adults, many who had once had hearing, Graeme’s attention turned to restoring hearing to children born deaf and never exposed to sound.

 

As Helen Keller notes, “The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus – the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir, and keeps us in the intellectual company of man. Blindness separates us from things but deafness separates us from people”. Professor Clark’s achievement in restoring hearing to adults and children has had a profound effect on the lives of individuals and families. Restoring the sense of hearing in an adult and giving a child the

experience of hearing and speaking, make Graeme Clark a great Australian and a great humanitarian.

 

“I have been impressed by the emergence of the bionic ear as a practical proposition, but even more by the promise for the future that it seems to embody... I feel that it may represent a new benchmark in the understanding of the neural and mental function in terms of their physical components. Perhaps the work will not reach such a climax for centuries, but whatever may eventuate special credit will be made to Professor Clark and his colleagues for their pioneering and successful work.”

Professor Emeritus Sir Macfarlane Burnett,

AK, OM, KBE, MD, PhD (Lond), FAA, FRS,

Nobel Laureate (Physiology & Medicine) 1985

 

 

Professor Clark’s achievements have been recognised in some of the major scientific prizes he has received. He is a rarity among scientists, having received three major scientific awards in a separate discipline of science. The Zulch Prize in 2007 was awarded by the Max Planck Society, Germany, for exceptional achievement in basic neurological research; the Otto Schmitt Award was awarded in 2009 by the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering for exceptional contributions to the advancement of the field of medical and biological engineering, and in November 2010 The Lister Medal by the Royal College of Surgeons of England in recognition of contributions to surgical science.

In 2013 Professor Clark received one of his most significant awards, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.  The Lasker Award, as it is more commonly known, is considered to be the American version of the Nobel Prize and among the most respected science prizes in the world.  This was followed up in 2015 when Professor Clark was awarded the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize for outstanding achievement in bioengineering that improves the human condition, the first Australian to win this award. The Russ Prize was established by the National Academy of Engineering (USA).

 

Professor Clark’s legacy and impact have been substantial. As the father of medical bionics in Australia, he has trained a generation of hearing scientists and surgeons. He established the first university training in audiology in Australia and he established the Bionic Ear Institute, a leader in bionics research. Commercial development of the cochlear implant was supported by Mr Paul Trainor and the Australian Government which resulted in the establishment of Cochlear Limited, the world’s leading cochlear implant developer and supplier.

 

Professor Graeme Clark has displayed remarkable passion, incredible determination, bold vision and outstanding leadership. His achievements have earned him a rightful place among the greats of Australian science.

 

"Graeme Clark is a genuine Australian hero.  We all talk about applying biomedical research and developing commercial opportunities from biomedical research, but Graeme Clark and his colleagues actually did it.  The Founding of Cochlear is a major event for Australia and on the way, of course, they have also helped an enormous number of people across the world to hear properly.  This has to be one of the great achievements of our science."

Laureate Professor Peter Doherty AC FAA FRS

Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine

 

 

We invite you to view the authorised video biography of Graeme Clark here, which details his amazing journey and story.