Xing Chen, Co-founder of Phosphoenix, Receives 2024 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award 

Xing Chen, PhD, co-founder of Phosphoenix and Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology, has received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) New Innovator Award from the NIH Common Fund’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program, with $1.5 million over five years. The program supports exceptionally creative scientists pursuing highly innovative research with the potential for broad impact in biomedical, behavioral, or social sciences within the NIH mission.

Dr. Chen earned her doctorate in Visual Neuroscience from Newcastle University (England), and completed postdoctoral research at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (Amsterdam). Her lab develops implantable devices that record from and stimulate the brain, with research centered on how electrical stimulation can evoke visual perceptions to ultimately produce assistive vision in the blind.

With funding from this award, Dr. Chen and her colleagues will study how specific patterns of stimulation affect perceived appearance of dots of light called phosphenes and improve the resolution and utility of artificial vision.

For more information, visit: