Apple hires MIT student who 3D printed his own brain tumor

Though Apple rarely speaks about its projects or hirings, the Cupertino giant's latest acquisition is making headlines for interesting reasons.

Apple has hired Steven Keating, a doctoral student from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who earned fame after making a 3D printout of his own brain on being diagnosed with a tumour.

According to a CNBC report, it is still not known whether Mr Keating is working on one of Apple’s teams dedicated to health care or he has joined another team that can take advantage of his expertise in mechanical engineering. He made headlines in 2015 after revealing the depths of his science experiment to better understand his own tumour.

Keating, who previously worked as a product design intern at Apple during the summer of 2013, reportedly addressed the audience at Sage Bionetworks’ annual conference “Assembly” as an Apple employee. He spoke about the challenges for patients to aggregate their own medical data and told that he went to medical school at least in part so he could study his own tissue.

Sage Bionetworks, a non-profit research organisation, has been a major proponent of Apple’s ResearchKit software, which is designed to make it easier for medical researchers to launch mobile-based studies.

Rumours suggest that a secret team of biomedical engineers at Apple is also working to develop sensors that can non-invasively and continuously monitor blood sugar levels to better treat diabetes. If such sensors are successfully developed, that would be a breakthrough as it is highly challenging to track glucose levels accurately without piercing the skin.