Event Date: March 4, 2027 6:00 pm – March 4, 2027 7:00 pm
Venue: Department of Physics, Ray Dolby Centre, CB3 0US
Neurological conditions affect one in six people worldwide, placing a major burden on individuals, families, and healthcare systems. Bioelectronic medicine is an emerging field that seeks to treat these conditions by using implantable devices to restore or replace lost neural function. Despite exciting progress, today’s devices still face important challenges: they are often bulky, require invasive surgery, can trigger unwanted immune responses, and lack precision in targeting specific signals in the body. In this talk, I will share how recent advances that draw inspiration from the microelectronics industry are transforming what is possible. Emerging devices are thinner, softer, and better adapted to the body, combining sensing and stimulation to deliver more precise therapies with fewer off-target effects. Together, these advances are paving the way for treatments that are both more effective and less invasive. I will also discuss the key hurdles that remain before these technologies can move from the lab to widespread clinical use, and what it will take to bring bioelectronic medicine to patients at scale.