Jocelyne Bloch
Swiss neuroscientist and functional neurosurgeon at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and EPFL. Co-leads the Brain-Spine Digital Bridge research programme with Grégoire Courtine and the NeuroRestore Laboratory jointly managed by CHUV, the University of Lausanne, the Defitech Foundation, and EPFL. 2026 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering laureate.
Background
Jocelyne Bloch is a Swiss neuroscientist and functional neurosurgeon at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and EPFL. She leads the functional neurosurgery unit at CHUV and is one of the leading clinical neurosurgeons working on implantable neurotechnology in Europe.
Brain-Spine Digital Bridge
Bloch co-leads the Brain-Spine Digital Bridge research programme together with EPFL neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine. The programme combines an implantable brain-computer interface on the motor cortex with epidural electrical stimulation of the spinal cord below the injury site, with the brain decoder triggering coordinated spinal stimulation that restores voluntary movement in patients with spinal cord injury. The research has been published in Nature in 2023 (Lorach et al.) and earlier in 2018 (Wagner et al.), and is the architectural template for ONWARD Medical’s ARC-BCI commercial programme as well as for similar clinical work now being pursued in China (Xuanwu Hospital / Beinao-1 combined surgery, one-year follow-up disclosed in May 2026).
NeuroRestore Laboratory
Since 2019, Bloch has co-led the NeuroRestore Laboratory together with Grégoire Courtine. NeuroRestore is jointly managed by Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), the University of Lausanne, the Defitech Foundation, and EPFL. The laboratory translates the brain-spine interface research programme into clinical practice.
Commercial spinout
Bloch is a co-founder of ONWARD Medical, the EPFL spinout commercialising the brain-spine interface architecture. ONWARD is publicly listed on Euronext (Brussels, Amsterdam, and Paris) under the ticker ONWD, with US investors able to access the stock via OTCQX ADRs under the ticker ONWRY. The company reported Q1 2026 revenue of EUR 2 million with seven ARC-BCI participants implanted to date.
Recognition
Bloch and Courtine were named together in Time magazine’s 2024 100 most influential people in health list. In 2026, they were jointly awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, sharing the prize with cochlear implant pioneers Graeme Clark, Erwin Hochmair, Ingeborg Hochmair, and Blake Wilson; DBS pioneers Alim Louis Benabid and Pierre Pollak; and BrainGate founder John Donoghue. The prize was awarded for the design and development of modern neural interfaces that restore human function.