We develop highly scalable interfaces between silicon chips (a.k.a., CMOS chips) and biological systems (live cells, molecules, organoids, tissues, and brain) for applications in life sciences, biotechnology, and next-generation computing.  

 

For example, for decades, neuroscience faced a stubborn trade-off: look inside a few neurons with exquisite intracellular details, or record from many neurons with extracellular approximations. We have recently developed iMEA ("intracellular microelectrode array") powered by a silicon microelectronic chip that breaks the compromise. It delivers both scale and fidelity, opening the door to large-scale intracellular neuroscience. With such caliber, it has so far mapped 70,000+ plausible synaptic connections from 2,000+ rat neurons and categorized them based on their nature and strengths. We are now advancing the technology toward fully plug-and-play platform both for in vitro experiments with a variety of neuronal cell types and for in vivo deployment. The CMOS iMEA technology can benefit fundamental neuroscience, pharmacological screening, brain-machine interface, and neuromorphic engineering.