Engineering medical miracles: Ephrem Takele Zewdie helps patients upgrade their own spines to regain the ability to walk
Ephrem Takele Zewdie is nothing short of amazing. Still only 25 years old, Zewdie is fundamentally transforming people’s lives by performing electro-medical miracles. And yet he’s so humble and down-to-earth that he chats about his results with the casualness most people would reserve for discussing how they mowed the lawn. Zewdie’s a doctoral student in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alberta. And six years after arriving in Edmonton by way of Hong Kong and Ethiopia, he’s devoted himself to helping people overcome incomplete spinal cord breaks. When asked if he might, one day , help someone walk again, he responds calmly, “Actually, we’ve already helped a couple of people walk again. No, wait… three people.” The social cost of spinal cord injuries According to a study from the Rick Hansen Institute, about 4200 Canadians experience spinal cord injuries each year—about 42 per cent of which result from car accidents—and currently more than 85,000 Canadians liv...