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Nick Glass travels to Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. state of Maryland to take a look at the world's most advanced bionic arm.

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So, this is your bionic arm?

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Yes. We call this the modular prosthetic limb, or MPL.

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This is the most sophisticated arm in the world. It can do virtually everything that your natural limb can do.

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That's quite a claim.

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Yes, it is. This arm has 26 individual joints that we can control.

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Has there ever been an arm quite like it?

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Never. So this arm is intended to work with your brain just like your natural arm works.

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Johnny Matheny from West Virginia worked in the baking trade until he lost his left arm to cancer in 2008.

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He heard about the bionic arm and signed up as soon as he could.

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The bionic arm weighs much the same as a normal one, about nine pounds.

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And it can mimic pretty much anything a normal hand can do, has almost the same dexterity,

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26 joints, 100 sensors as we've been told, also 17 motors and a tiny computer built into the palm of the hand.

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The effect is almost musical.

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And, what's it like?

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It's crazy. I mean, to actually be able to work a hand just like you had.

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I mean, in 2008 when they took the arm, I never figured I'd ever have another actual hand.

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I'd seen the hooks and I figured that's exactly what I'd be getting.

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And then they come out with this and it's like, "Wow."

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The arm has to be carefully programmed on computer, coded to respond to electrical impulses from Johnny's stump.

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He thinks about moving his old arm.

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You can see the impulses on the screen, little waves and squiggles.

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The computer recognizes each pattern and makes the bionic arm move accordingly.

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At the beginning, did Johnny believe it would work?

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Well, you know, you believe it, but there's always, you know, that little bit of doubt that, you know, it's not going to work.

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And when it did it was like,  "Whoosh, yeah! I was ready. Give me more. Give me more."

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It was time to have a go myself, to slip on a special glove with sensors linked up to the bionic arm.

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How like my real arm and hand is this?

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It can do virtually anything that you can do with your natural hand, OK.

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You can move... yeah you can move your wrist. Right, it's very fluid.

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My goodness, I could wave like the queen.

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That's right. You can think about things like, you know, playing the piano eventually, doing very complex types of things.

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You imagine someone with bionic arms playing the piano?

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I think we'll get there someday. We're not there yet, but we'll get there.

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Do you feel privileged?

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Oh, yes, very privileged, very privileged to be able to do this, to show, you know, any upper amputee person, you know, what is... what they'll be able to do.

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It's going to be... what's coming their way, it's not going to be, you know, the way of the future, the future is coming now.