Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
This podcast's purpose is to bring together the field of neuroprosthetics / brain machine interfaces / brain implants in an understandable conversation about the current topics and breakthroughs. We hope to complement scientific papers on new neural research in an easy, digestable way. Innovators and professionals can share thoughts or ideas to facilitate 'idea sex' to make the field of brain implants a smaller and more personal space.
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Scott Burwell on quantifying physiological responses to substance abuse with NeuromarkR
01/24/2022
Scott Burwell on quantifying physiological responses to substance abuse with NeuromarkR
is the founder and CEO of which makes a portable EEG headset, the NeuromarkR, which quantifies brain physiological responses to possible triggers for people with Substance Use Disorder. This enables the recognition of brain biomarker targets for treatment and tracking changes over the course of recovery. [email protected] Top 3 Takeaways: "What we're trying to do is use these brain sensing devices to measure some objective biomarkers that can help make objective decisions. And objective treatment benchmarks accessible in addiction clinics." "This is really a risk biomarker and a way to stratify patients based on their risk, but it's also potentially a way to provide therapy and engagement practices with." "Patients aren't always aware of their own level of craving and their own level of vulnerability for relapse." 1:00 Do you want to introduce yourself? 3:15 "So let's talk a little bit, how you got into this" 5:45 "Do you wanna describe the technology a little bit? How it works, why it works?" 8:30 "It wouldn't be necessarily something that you take home? This would be like with the trained experts, something like this?" 9:30 "Can you also see the physiological side of things or is it, this is more like a psychological measurement?" 11:00 "So you've been around for two years. What are some good results, the best results that you've gotten so far?" 14:15 "Could you pair it with a, like an electroshock therapy to maybe disassociate that, that love?" 16:00 "What what are the next few years look like? What do you hope to achieve? " 18:00 "What have been some of your biggest challenges in in your company so far?" 21:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Jeremy Greenberg on Data Flows and Privacy Risks of Brain-Computer Interfaces
01/17/2022
Jeremy Greenberg on Data Flows and Privacy Risks of Brain-Computer Interfaces
Jeremy Greenberg works for the nonprofit and has written . The report is an extensive look into some of the challenges of privacy in the BCI space. Top 3 Takeaways: "A lot of the risks in this base really stem from the fact that neuro data is sensitive personal information. This is biological. It relates to mental privacy. These devices can be used to derive inferences about a person's likes their dislikes, their fears, emotions. So this is, this involves very sensitive and intimate details or inferences about an individual." "I think that the involuntary nature of this data is something that is really concerning for privacy." "The bill in Chile regulates neuro data as an organ under a Chilean organ transplant law." 1:00 "Do you want to introduce yourself because you're not a neuroscientist you're working in Washington DC non-profit. So who are you and how did you get into this writing?" 4:15 "So what is neurotech going to be used for, what are the potential applications? What are the potential risks?" 9:45 "Which areas are the most concerning?" 12:30 "So should we just ban neuro data? Are there any benefits, are there any upsides to this, and what are the upsides?" 15:00 " A country actually did this [setting up neuro rights] recently. Do you want to talk about Chile?" 18:00 "Why especially Chile, is that what caused them to do this?" 20:30 "So what are the takeaways? What should companies learn from this? What should they be doing in the future?" 25:45 "Are there any final thoughts, any takeaways that you wanted to mention?"
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Tim Jorgensen on the history of bioelectronics over the centuries up to today
01/10/2022
Tim Jorgensen on the history of bioelectronics over the centuries up to today
Tim Jorgensen is the author of Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life which looks at the history of bioelectrics all the way from prehistory to the modern era. The book is very informative and shows that current neurotechnology has very deep roots. Top 3 Takeaways: "The word electricity comes from the Greek Latin word for Amber. That's where it originally comes from because that was the only way to create it. They would rub Amber with wool and you would get static electricity" "One of these tricks actually was called the flying boy. They would suspend a child from silk ribbons and would take a glass rod and rub it in order to make static electricity. And then they would touch the boys with the rod and his body would be that the electricity would go into his body. And then he would able be able to do things with his hands, pass his hand over an open book and the page would move or he could attract feathers to his fingers and things like that." "It was the doctor's demand for better and better electrical generators for treating patients that funded the development of electrical generator industry." 0:45 "Do you want to describe yourself and your background a little?" 7:45 "Maybe we can take, maybe we can go through a quick history starting with prehistory?" 9:00 "Afterwards it really doesn't start until, like the enlightenment, right?" 17:15 "Then I guess in my mind, the next thing is the industrial era, like you were saying that the Edison, or is there something in between?" 23:15 "How far back does neurostimulation go?" 42:00 "Overall what has been your impression of writing the book and what do you think about the future of neurotech?" 47:00 "You were talking about some of the difficulties of publishing now during COVID, how so?" 49:00 "I'm very glad that you wrote it"
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Paul Grand about bringing the world's best ecosystem to the world's best companies with Medtech Innovator
01/04/2022
Paul Grand about bringing the world's best ecosystem to the world's best companies with Medtech Innovator
is the CEO of which is an accelerator for startups in the medical technology space. It has been going for many years and the companies that they select to go through the 4 month process have gone on to be very successful. Apply for this year's cohort, deadline January 31st Top 3 Takeaways: "MedTech innovator as an accelerator is the world's largest accelerator for medical technology" "1,800 companies applied last year across all of our cohorts. We accept around 4% of that." "Some of the benchmarks we've got: over 90 products in the market, $3.5 billion in follow on funding to our companies post-MedTech innovator, and we've had 21 acquisitions." 0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself?" 3:00 "What is MedTech innovator for? Who is it for?" 6:00 "Is there exclusion criteria or is there some kind of a framework where certain companies would be better fits?" 9:30 Are there companies that would be too big for you? 10:30 "How do you find these companies?" 12:30 "How do you help find investment and how do you help people guide through this process?" 16:45 "What are some of your favorite success stories?" 22:15 Do busy CEOs have to drop everything in order to attend the 4 month workshop? 24:00 "What advice do you have for companies who want to get into Medtech Innovator?" 31:00 "Is there anything that we didn't mention that you wanted to talk about?"
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Yannick Roy on creating a neurotech community with over 18,000 members
12/13/2021
Yannick Roy on creating a neurotech community with over 18,000 members
is the founder of which is a community of neurotechnology enthusiasts with over 18,000 members from around the world started in 2014. They have also held in-person events to help bring people together. Due to this large community, Yannick has also started NeurotechX Services which brings together this large community to help companies and people. Top 3 Takeaways: "we don't have any outside funding, government funding. We needed to bootstrap everything. The organization was and still is mainly volunteer-driven" three pillars: community, education, and, innovation "More money isn't necessarily a good thing because when you have too much money, then you're not necessarily smart about spending that money." 1:00 "Do you want to introduce yourself and talk a little about NeurotechX as well as some of your other stuff?" 6:30 "What do people do when they meet up? Do they just talk about how much they love neurotech or what's the agenda for the meetings?" 13:00 "What is a typical size of a meetup and then does it go like four in the morning?" 16:00 "If you were to want to start a group in your area, what would that look like? 22:00 "So have you been funded or where's the money coming from? Or is this coming out of your personal pocket?" 27:00 "Do you want to talk a little bit about NeurotechX services?" 34:30 "You've done all this while still in your PhD, right?" 40:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Marc Russo on running clinical trials in Australia and the INS
12/06/2021
Marc Russo on running clinical trials in Australia and the INS
is the president of the which is a nonprofit group of clinicians, scientists and engineers dedicated to the scientific development and awareness of neuromodulation. Dr Russo runs a large multidisciplinary pain clinic in Australia. He has conducted a number of first-in-man studies of novel neuromodulation implants as well as designing unique leads and waveforms in spinal cord stimulation (SCS). Top 3 Takeaways: "Over more than a 20 year journey now we understand that these patients are best treated early rather than later. The best traded with as close to zero levels of opioids. And that doses higher than 40 milligrams per day, actually worsen outcomes for spinal cord stimulation," "High dose exogenous opioid prescription can actually induce epigenetic change in the genome of a patient so that even if you remove something such as opioids after five years, the body doesn't return to its former expression of proteins and then maybe actually permanent changes that may have worse outcome." "What's in a book is not sacrosanct and that you need to not just blindly apply something that you read in a book and think that it was, descended from the tablets of Moses. You actually need to think of what are you doing and does that apply to this particular patient?" 0:45 "And do you want to introduce yourself?" 1:45 "What changes have you seen?" 3:45 "In bioelectronic medicine it's beneficial to have a combination of drugs and stimulation, but you're saying that's the opposite in pain? Is it something like a numbing effect or what's the justification that you found for this?" 5:45 "Is opioid something that lingers?" 7:30 "What are some other trends that you've noticed along your 20 years of working in the field?" 10:00 "So the stimulation is not something that's there forever that they're going to have to manage forever?" 11:30 What's it like running a clinical trials unit? 13:30 "What's the pain clinic, like what's the makeup of this and do hospitals send people to you or how does it work?" 15:15 "What would be the advantage of doing a clinical trial in Australia?" 16:30 "What's that process like, a clinical trial, and how long, how many patients are involved?" 19:00 "What would be a good clinical trial versus a bad clinical trial?" 24:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Gautam Sadarangani on the importance of measuring and gamifying physical therapy exercises
11/29/2021
Gautam Sadarangani on the importance of measuring and gamifying physical therapy exercises
is the President & COO/CTO of by BioInteractive Technologies, a digital health system that provides a better way to retrain movement for the hand, wrist, and elbow. Top 3 Takeaways: "Our core competence here is the fact that we're able to measure the limb with sufficient accuracy and sufficient resolution for rehabilitation purposes while being very unobtrusive for the person to wear essentially 24/7" "Quantifying and motivating is a big deal. It's not different than when you're trying to lose weight and use a weighing scale. You need those parameters to tell you if you're moving in the right direction." Using TENZR technology increases the motivation of patients to stick with the recovery program 2:30 " Let's talk about the technology a little bit. How does it work? Why does it work?" 3:45 "How precise is it and how precise do you need to be for this rehabilitation process?" 5:00 "So what would be a typical patient and how long would they be using the device?" 9:15 "You guys are a startup and you guys have raised money. How far along in the process are you and what does the next five years look like?" 11:30 "You had a very interesting story. How you came into this you grew up in Singapore, but also you worked at a company, a different company before, before coming here. Did you want to talk about both of those things?" 13:45 What's been your experience of my Neurotech Mastermind Peer Support Group? 15:45 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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John Doucet on helping companies get FDA approval at MCRA
11/22/2021
John Doucet on helping companies get FDA approval at MCRA
is a neuroscientist and biomedical engineer with 10+ years of FDA experience in medical device regulation, and 13+ years of Johns Hopkins experience in discovery science, and 6+ years of management experience at FDA and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He has extensive knowledge of medical device regulatory pathways to drive technologies from conception to market. Top 3 Takeaways: "That's what clients are paying for, I can detect the signal from the noise and all the stuff the company is doing, bring that to the FDA in a way that they can digest it "Everyone wants breakthrough device. If you're like talking to an investor, you want to say FDA labeled us a breakthrough device. "Yes, our device is the greatest thing since sliced bread, FDA thinks so too."" "One of the reasons, I left the FDA and I'm on this side with MCRA working directly with clients is I'm hoping that I can scrub some delays away" "I feel like I'm still protecting and promoting public health" 1:15 "Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit?" 5:30 "What is regulatory? Why is it necessary? Why do people like you in your previous life, at the FDA, why does that have to exist? And then why do you and your current life, why does it have to exist?" 10:30 "People should come to you even pre-submission, to be able to consultant and figure out how best to pitch it to the FDA so that it could be approved?" 16:15 "A lot of times when like politicians then become like contractors, it's like a revolving door. What do you think about that? Is it like you're using your connections or what are the ethics of that?" 18:00 "And what's your opinion on the field of neuro tech is it growing exponentially? Have we hit the hockey stick part of the growth?" 24:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Ni-Ka Ford on the importance of medical illustration
11/15/2021
Ni-Ka Ford on the importance of medical illustration
is a that works with both 2D and 3D sketches often in the neurotech space. Top 3 Takeaways: "I was doing an illustration for a procedure. And what happened was the surgeon actually ended up changing his manuscript after seeing my illustration." There are 4 accredited graduate programs for Medical Illustration "When I do something that's more a schematic, I could finish an illustration in maybe a week. More rendered illustrations that are high in details may take me about a month to complete." 0:45 "Can you describe what you do?" 2:45 "How did you get into this?" 5:00 "It sounds more broad than just illustrations. You're not just sketching cadavers, dead bodies but you do more than that. And then you have done some more of this work. Do you wanna describe that a little bit?" 7:00 "Why is medical illustration important? Why do you have to exist?" 12:00 "iIf people are interested in this kind of career path is this something you would recommend?" 14:45 "Do you want to talk a little bit about your freelance work as well?" 15:15 "How long does it take to do an image?"
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Dr Paul Tubig and Dr Darcy McCusker on neuroethics workshops
11/08/2021
Dr Paul Tubig and Dr Darcy McCusker on neuroethics workshops
and are graduates from the University of Washington. Dr Tubig now works at at Georgia Southern University teaching neuroethics and is teaching social and political philosophy, bioethics, neuroethics, and philosophy of disability. Top 3 Takeaways: "There have been reports and testimonies of users who have experienced a sense of depersonalization, a sense of alienation and a sense that they are no longer themselves [after using implanted neurotechnology]." "It turns out that when you have an ethicist in the room, you end up asking really different kinds of questions of your participants." "We do these workshops for an hour and a half and the hope really is, that it's going to spark conversations when people go back to their labs and they'll bring it up at their next lab meeting" 0:45 "Why neuroethics, why is it important?" 3:00 "You guys conduct a lot of interviews both in terms of the implantees, researchers and talk about your outreach. Do you want to talk a little bit about this? And should I be scared about my position as a podcast host?" 4:15 "What are some ethical issues that are faced with neuro ethics that's not faced in normal day-to-day ethics? Trolley problem, for example?" 8:00 "You guys have done lots of implants or neurotech users interviews. So what's the takeaways from some of these interviews?" 9:30 "How many people that are there that are affected by this kind of thing? Is it still a very rare thing?Can you count all these patients on one hand? Or are there millions and we just don't know about it?" 14:45 "Why Neuroethics? Why is it interesting to you? Why do you think it's important?" 19:45 "When you mentioned that you make a neurotechnology sound a lot like drugs and alcohol, that you basically have this like happiness lever. And so basically couldn't we just transfer everything we know about the ethics of drugs and alcohol into neurotechnology?" 21:00 "You guys are a part of a neuro ethics round table project. What is this about, what is the goal, what has been some of the outcomes?" 24:45 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you guys wanted to mention?"
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Seth Hays pairing VNS with rehab for better patient outomes
11/01/2021
Seth Hays pairing VNS with rehab for better patient outomes
's research focus at the University of Texas at Dallas is enhancing neuroplasticity, or the ability of the brain to change, in order to treat neurological disease. The majority of current studies evaluate the ability of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), a putative targeted plasticity therapy, to improve recovery in models of motor dysfunction Top 3 Takeaways: "VNS itself is not a thing unto itself. It's really the combination of VNS with the rehabilitation that's producing the effects that we see" "We think this is most effective when there's really some deficit that you have trouble overcoming the cognitive reserve. If you're in deficit and you can't get over that hump, VNS might be a way to promote some of that. "It's a simple concept that you're pairing their modulator release with VNS, with rehab, you put rehab on steroids in way that really might benefit patients." 0:30 Do you want to introduce yourself? 2:15 "This targeted learning neuro-plasticity how does it work?" 3:45 "Is this something that people feel, do they feel some kind of like a tingling?" 5:15 What kind of effects do you see?" 8:00 "What exactly do you use? How do you interface with the nerves?" 13:00 So it's just bulk activation? 14:30 "You were talking about testing these devices and do you want to talk a little bit about this?" 19:00 "What's something that you believe that most people don't" 22:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Francois Ladouceur on a new paradigm for action potential sensing through optics
10/25/2021
Francois Ladouceur on a new paradigm for action potential sensing through optics
is a University of New South Wales professor teaching and researching integrated optics, silica and diamond-based photonics, optical sensing networks, and photonics-based brain/machine interfaces Top 3 Takeaways: "it's a liquid crystal-based transducer that can transduce an electrical signal into an optical signal that we can carry the away from the place of measurement" With electrical-based electrodes making the devices smaller increases the impedance degrading the signal which doesn't happen in LCP based electrodes "We have built a chip, which is bidirectional, it can read the action potential and it can stimulate the neuron. Again, entirely passive. It requires no electrical input. It does not dissipate energy." 0:30 "How did you get on this podcast?" 3:00 Is another advantage the lack of heat generated? 5:30 "What are the bio compatible properties of liquid crystal?" 7:00 "What are some advantages of this over other techniques?" 10:15 "How does the multiplexer work?" 15:15 "What would be the minimum width?" 19:00 "You haven't really published too much about this, but you said a big paper is going to be coming out?" 21:30 "It's really just for sensing, you couldn't stimulate with these, right?" 25:00 "When did this technology originally come to your mind?" 27:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Sergey Young on lifespan and health span extension through his Longevity Fund
10/18/2021
Sergey Young on lifespan and health span extension through his Longevity Fund
is a longevity investor and visionary with a mission to extend healthy lifespans of at least one billion people. To do that, Sergey founded Longevity Vision Fund to accelerate life extension technological breakthroughs and to make longevity affordable and accessible to all Top 3 Takeaways: "I'm sponsoring the development of age reversal X price. This is a technological competition to basically reverse aging measured by a set of biomarkers." "Some of the companies that we have in our portfolio decrease the cost of a particular healthcare intervention or solution to a particular health problem by a factor of 10, 20, even 50." Longevity investing is very collaborative, even if investors lose money they still feel like they helped the world. 0:45 "Do you wanna describe yourself?" 2:00 "So why, especially longevity?" 5:00 "What are you looking for when a company comes to you?" 9:30 "How do you measure success in a fund?" 11:30 "What does it take to raise a new fund and to get more money in order for you to invest?" 16:00 "Is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to mention? Maybe you want to talk about your book a little bit?"
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Miguel Nicolelis on Neuralink and performing in front of a billion people at the 2014 World Cup
10/11/2021
Miguel Nicolelis on Neuralink and performing in front of a billion people at the 2014 World Cup
Although the is best known for pioneering studies in neuronal population coding, Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMI) and neuroprosthetics in human patients and non-human primates, they have also developed an integrative approach to studying neurological and psychiatric disorders including Parkinsons disease and epilepsy. Top 3 Takeaways: "Every Brazilian kid dreams to play for the Brazilian national team in a world cup game, I didn't quite fulfill the dream, but I got as close as a scientist can get. And we had about 65,000 people in the stadium that day in about 1.2 billion people watching the kickoff." "Every time one of my students complain about the programming job, I said, are you kidding me? You have one megabyte of Ram. We had 64 K. No complaining anymore." Instead of selling a device they will be opening neuro rehab centers in under developed areas of the world to give better treatment than what could be possible at the largest hospitals 2:15 "Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit beyond [doing the FIFA 2014 kickoff]?" 6:00 "So what's the advantage of monkey versus rat versus pig. All these different animal models versus human?" 8:45 Why did the monkey implants last longer? 10:30 "I want to go into this hardware that you've used, you made your own, it sounds like you made your own probes and then I'm imagining, computers from the late nineties too. So were you limited by that?" 15:45 "Is it easier now with more RAM, better computation? We have a million times more, but is it a million times easier or how does that translate?" 18:30 "Neuralink had this really interesting presentation with the monkey playing pong, but probably for you that wasn't nearly as innovative. Do you want to talk about this a little bit?" 23:15 "You were going to choose to become an Ameritas at Duke and that you're sitting, setting up an Institute in Brazil. Do you want to talk about both of these?" 28:45 "Obviously you have ties to Brazil, but is there any other advantages to having it in Brazil versus Europe or us or Australia?" 29:30 "What's the next place? Where should we be looking forward to these hubs?" 33:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Kip Ludwig on some of the more controversial neurotech ideas
10/04/2021
Kip Ludwig on some of the more controversial neurotech ideas
leads the Bioelectronic Medicines Laboratory at the , with the goal of developing next-generation neuromodulation therapies that use minimally invasive strategies to highjack the nervous system to treat circuit dysfunction and deliver biomolecules to target areas with unprecedented precision. Prior to Wisconsin, Dr. Ludwig served as the Program Director for Neural Engineering at the National Institutes of Health. He co-led the Translational Devices Program at NINDS, led the NIH BRAIN Initiative programs to catalyze implantable academic and clinical devices to stimulate and/or record from the central nervous system, and led a trans-NIH planning team in developing the ~250 million dollar S.P.A.R.C. Program to stimulate advances in neuromodulation therapies for organ systems. Dr. Ludwig also worked in Industry as a research scientist, where his team conceived, developed, and demonstrated the chronic efficacy of a next-generation neural stimulation electrode for reducing blood pressure in both pre-clinical studies and clinical trials. Through his industry work, he oversaw Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP studies enabling clinical trials in Europe and the United States, as well as participated in the protocol development and execution of those trials, leading to approval for sale in seven countries and a U.S. Pivotal trial. Top 3 Takeaways "We actually don't definitively know what we're stimulating for effects in most of our largest markets for neuromodulation therapy. "Don't ever date electrical stimulation. It will cheat on you. It's very promiscuous. It also creates a lot of effects in non-neuronal cells. That may be important... electrical stimulation is very dirty. There's no way around it" "A lot of things we don't consider as one of the startup company fails. Now we've got a piece of hardware in my neck and I've got nobody who knows how to maintain it." 1:00 "Do you wanna introduce yourself?" 2:00 You've been in academia, industry, and government, what's that like? 5:00 "Before we started recording, you were talking about, drug-resistant drug coatings on neural devices. Why might not that be a good one?" 12:30 "Everybody uses rat models, but that might not be very accurate because humans and rats are different, right?" 15:00 "So what's the solution? Use more human testing?" 18:30 "What's the solution. How did people gain this perspective?" 22:45 "Is this something that we need to wait for AI to be able to solve?" 26:45 "But is that bad? So for me, I'm more engineering-minded, more practical. It's just if it works, it works, right?" 33:45 "The small percentage that makes it through the phase one and I wonder how many, good therapies were out there that just because of chance, fell through.?" 37:15 "So we have to redo statistics, is that what you're saying?" 37:45 " Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Justin Sanchez on going from working at DARPA to helping roll out tech at Battelle
09/27/2021
Justin Sanchez on going from working at DARPA to helping roll out tech at Battelle
is a Life Sciences Research Technical Fellow at but before that he was Director of Biological Technologies office at DARPA. Top 3 Takeaways "You'll never be able to establish your academic career unless you go and move to another place. I'm like, guys, this doesn't make any sense to me. What's most important is to do great work in the field and establish a foundation of the field." "I still had my university job for a couple of years while I was serving at DARPA. And if my time at DARPA and everybody's term-limited at DARPA. When that term ended, I could have gone back to Miami." "I launched three gigantic programs in neurotechnology each one with 70 or $80 million behind them and found some of the best teams in the world to do that." 1:15 "Do you want to maybe start at the beginning and talk a little bit about your work here in Gainesville?" 10:00 "So on the show and when we're talking about to the other DARPA directors we talk about the moment you got tapped on the shoulder, is that when you were tapped on the shoulder to go serve?" 16:15 "I think of DARPA, as...seemingly throw unlimited resources at, projects to solve them. But it's very time-limited and it can stop at a moment's notice. So it's almost a little bit like cocaine research... So what was that like? And what was the day-to-day or how was that different than being a professor researcher?" 19:45 "So what was your day-to-day like?" 23:30 "Afterwards... you went to go work at Battelle. Do you want to talk about this?" 27:45 "Your official role [at Battelle] is Life Sciences Research, Technical Fellow. I don't know what that means. What do you do?" 32:00 "So what are some maybe specific projects that are exciting you nowadays? " 36:00 "You wrote a book about all this. I'm very curious about it. Do you want to talk about this a little bit?" 39:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Victor Pikov on starting a bioelectronic medicine company after working at Galvani
09/20/2021
Victor Pikov on starting a bioelectronic medicine company after working at Galvani
is the founder and CEO of , a sacral nerve stimulation neuromodulation company and VP of Technology at TRI, Trans Stimulation Incorporated. He also worked at Galvani, a joint venture between Google and GSK as well as working in academia before. Top 3 Takeaways "When you try to speak to potential investors who consider themselves experts in medical devices, they typically fall into three categories: One is no experience with neuromodulation and another bucket is experienced with wearable neuromodulation. And the third very small bucket is experience with implantable class three neuromodulation." "Chinese VCs, typically are much younger, often they're less than 30 years old. And they're joining typically in larger numbers, about four to six to the zoom meetings versus one to two in the US and they're also being rather silent during the presentations." " [A surgeon] showed a whole bunch of photographs of failed implantations and you could see all kinds of ways it possibly can fail. This is very educational. It's much better than showing a picture of a working implant." 0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself?" 1:15 "You were working at Galvani... do you want to explain it and what the, what this venture was aiming?" 8:00 "So you were there for three years and then you decided to go do your own thing, did you see a need in the market?" 12:15 "Let's talk about these NIH, SBR grants" 19:00 "You were pitching to VCs in China. And so now you have a comparison, the US versus China. So what's that like?" 21:00 "A lot of people are a little bit nervous about working with China or Chinese companies because of intellectual property. They're worried that their technology will be stolen or copied. Is that something that people should be worried about? Is that how did you approach it?" 25:15 You guys decided to use an off-the-shelf IPG instead of developing your own one, why? 30:45 Can you talk about the small neurotech meetings you organized? 34:15 "So you're saying as an academician, you had lots of time, but now you don't." 35:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?" Here is the link to 5 conferences that Dr Pikov helped to organize:
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Daniel Palanker on breaking physics to found neurotech companies
09/13/2021
Daniel Palanker on breaking physics to found neurotech companies
is at Stanford University. He has had many successful technologies spun off into companies or patents including those involving retinal prosthetics, optical imaging and spectroscopy, laser-tissue interactions, and retinal plasticity. Top 3 Takeaways "The [size] limitation for a retinal prosthesis is not in a fabrication side. The limitation is an interface with neurons" Allergan acquired Oculeve but then didn't do much with it seemingly because they already had a more profitable drug on the market "Stanford is industry-friendly, encouraging commercialization, basically making things practical and useful and in Berkeley it's a communist mentality" 1:15 "You've worked on a railroad. Do you want to talk about this a little bit?" 2:00 "I introduced you a little bit, but do you want to describe yourself and your role?" 3:00 "The retinal prosthesis is a very fascinating technology. What's the advantage of this versus something else?" 7:15 "Tell me about the progress of this technology. Where did it start and how far has it progressed in the many years since you've been working on it" 14:00 "It seems there's a curse, on these vision prosthetics companies and the SecondSight and actually Pixium also has stuttered a little bit in the last year or so. Do you want to comment?" 19:30 "You mentioned this sub 40 micron photo detector, do you see a potential for, getting down to the five and the three micron size of that you had mentioned?" 22:45 "Did you want to talk about TrueTear and Oculeve a little bit?" 24:00 "If you suspect [a company buying your tech and shelving it] were to happen the then would you would you go through with that sale or would you continue to develop it yourself?" 25:15 "I was reading you have 70 patents and seven platform technologies... Is this a Stanford thing? Do you have access to great talent or are the projects you're working on especially good at spinning off these companies?" 27:15 "Is there anything else that you're excited about? Any other crazy physics rules that you're gonna be breaking?" 33:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Donna Hamlin, an executive coach on how to be a better leader in neurotech
09/06/2021
Donna Hamlin, an executive coach on how to be a better leader in neurotech
is a corporate executive with thirty years of corporate, governance and strategy consulting experience. She oversees ’s global programs, including its centers and their services. These include: board evaluations, professional certification and training, its global registry of qualified directors, Board Bona Fide®, its strategic partnership programs and its Boardwise center. Top 3 Takeaways "It's really important to know that if we want to be good at our work, then we've got to explore things outside of our normal swim lanes. And when we do that, it gives us a different view or another way" "There's a great exercise called appreciating your vices. If you can identify vices, and then you can go teach some group of people, how to do that vice really well. Then you start laughing at it because you realize how silly it is." "360 is when an executive coach hand picks five to six people that work with that person routinely and you do an in-depth interview about the experience of working with this person. And then you summarize all of that into some themes and sit down with the person to say what we can do to make you a stronger leader as a result of that. And typically in that process, you're getting raw feedback about what that experience is through a third party." 0:30 "How would you describe yourself?" 6:00 "Why creativity? Why leadership? How are those two things connected?" 10:00 "How should one think about approaching being a good leader or being the ideal leader? " 11:30 "Are you limited to a specific type of job based on your predisposition?" 14:15 "You mentioned five different types of, I guess leadership styles. Do you want to go through these and explain what each of them are a little bit?" 21:00 "What are some big mistakes or what's the biggest issue that you see with leaders?" 24:30 "Is there any other exercises that we can do in order to strengthen those muscles of listening more?" 30:00 "Do you have any other more stories how this 360 or this kind of social gaps were changed or improved by having some sort of an outside perspective?" 32:15 "Do you want to talk about your company? What do you do?" 34:30 "Do you have any stories of the most radical transformation?" 37:45 " Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
/episode/index/show/neuralimplant/id/20291942
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David McMullen of NIH on Blueprint Medtech, the program to help neurotech companies grow
08/30/2021
David McMullen of NIH on Blueprint Medtech, the program to help neurotech companies grow
is the program officer at the in the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They are launching the NIH Blueprint Medtech (links below) which aims to help incubate growing neurotech companies go from Bench to Bedside. Top 3 Takeaways "We're funding individual projects and trying to help groups in the past have struggled... to get funding and to get all the way to in human trials. The Blueprint Medtech resource is meant to derisk later investment and grants for companies "We saw some great programs... having difficulty when they come in - Can we decrease the activation energy to getting to first-in-human? Can we compress the timeline a little bit Can we spend that money a little bit more wisely and improve some of these outcomes?" 0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself?" 5:45 "Do you want to describe your job? What do you do and what is the program director do?" 7:45 "Do you want to talk about the Blueprint Initiative?" 9:45 "This sounds almost like a government-led VC, am I off in this?" 11:00 "Do you want to describe the project a little bit?" 13:30 What are some guidelines of the project to fund neurotech companies? 16:30 "Generally, what stage should the company be at?" 18:15 "How do the hubs work? When I think of a hub, I think of a physical, like one location but does it have to be like that?" 23:45 "Do you want to talk a little bit about the motivation for this?" 26:30 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?" NIH BLUEPRINT MEDTECH LINKS -Home website for the Blueprint MedTech program. Overall figure explaining the program on the front page. The site links to the webinars and funding opportunities. Please reach out if you have any questions! INDIVIDUAL PROJECT FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES: October 20, 2021 First receipt date. Multiple receipt dates. Blueprint MedTech Translator (UG3/UH3 - Clinical Trial Optional) Funding Opportunity TitleBlueprint Medtech: Small Business Translator (U44 - Clinical Trial Optional) INCUBATOR HUBS: Only 1 receipt date! October 20, 2021 Blueprint MedTech: Incubator Hubs (U54 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) WEBINARS: Incubator Hub Funding Opportunity (PAR-21-314) Monday, August 30, 2021, 3:00 PM EDT Translator Funding Opportunities (PAR-21-315; PAR-21-282) Tuesday, August 31, 2021 4:00 PM EDT
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Jon Speer on how Quality Management Software for Medtech companies raised $120 Million
08/23/2021
Jon Speer on how Quality Management Software for Medtech companies raised $120 Million
Jon is the founder of (quality management software exclusively for medical device companies) & a medical device guru with nearly 20 years industry experience. Jon knows the best medical device companies in the world use quality as an accelerator. That's why he created Greenlight Guru to help companies move beyond compliance to True Quality. Top 3 Takeaways If it isn't documented, it didn't happen. One particular audit didn't take four days. It took two days because the Greenlight system made it so much simpler. Greenlight Guru also has an academy to teach people about the medical device regulatory process. 0:45 "What is quality management and why is it important? And it doesn't have to be boring?" 4:15 "Why couldn't people just make their own system?" 7:00 "Is the process any different for neurotech or neural implants or is this pretty applicable to all medical devices?" 8:00 "Is this something that is applicable to... people in government or academia or anybody else?" 11:00 "What are exactly the tangible benefits of using GreenLight Guru?" 16:00 "You guys got a nice investment recently, $120 million. I'm surprised. Why so much? And what's it gonna be used for?" 20:00 "I want to hear a little bit more about the academy."
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Dr Aldo Faisal on using eye movements and AI to improve BCIs
08/09/2021
Dr Aldo Faisal on using eye movements and AI to improve BCIs
Professor is the Professor of AI & Neuroscience at the Dept. of Computing and the Dept. of Bioengineering at Imperial College London. His work is in Machine Learning and eye tracking to improve neurotechnologies. Top 3 Takeaways "What we do is we get people to move into our living lab/studio flat and they live their daily lives, and we record everything that they do, how they do, where they look, we record the eye movements, the body movements, and everything." "The more subjects you add to your dataset from different datasets, the worse the performance of the system becomes." A combination of fNIRS and EEG works significantly better together than they do apart 0:45 "Do you wanna introduce yourself?" 16:00 "Why is the eye movement retained even in degenerative disorders? Why that versus something more basal and integral to life like breathing or heartbeat or something" 18:45 "It seems like neurotech is, and should be very deeply ingrained with AI and machine learning. How important is it?" 22:00 Are there plug-and-play AI programs for neurotech? 25:30 " So why wouldn't you like always go to those larger data sets from other labs?" 26:45 "Machine learning/AI takes a very long time and it's very computationally intensive. Is this something that people can do at home?" 28:30 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?" 30:15 "So how much better is the combination of EEG and fNIRS versus just one?" Interesting videos about Dr Faisal's work:
/episode/index/show/neuralimplant/id/19945445
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Florian Solzbacher on the $10 million Blackrock Neurotech investment and plans for future
08/02/2021
Florian Solzbacher on the $10 million Blackrock Neurotech investment and plans for future
is the Co-Founder and Chairman of which has the Utah Electrode Array, the only FDA-approved neural implantable device. Blackrock Neurotech recently closed a $10 million financing round, led by Christian Angermayer's re.Mind Capital with participation from Peter Thiel, German entrepreneur Tim Sievers, and Sorenson Impact's University Venture Fund II. Top 3 Takeaways "In the end, you have to have the drive. It has to be a passion. And then you will find a way because very often in life, you will find that, just when you need it, all that you really need is one door opening at the right time” "The worst thing that can happen to this field is this sort of Hollywood-type hype and associated fear… 'people put chips into our brain and then they can read my thoughts” "You need to understand that you stand and fall with a team" 2:00 "You got a round of $10 million. So do you want to talk about this?" 10:45 "So are you saying then that they're not as interested in the prosthetic side of things but they really want to improve the bandwidth between consciousness and machines?" 16:00 "What do you plan to do with the money? Because $10 million is a lot of money, but at the same time, it's not a lot of money. That's like what you were saying, that's two studies, right?" 17:30 "I'm curious to hear your history of the company and how it's progressed over the last few decades." 25:30 "What advice do you have for listeners who want to do not only science, not only neuroscience, but engineering, science, business, and development?" 33:45 " Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
/episode/index/show/neuralimplant/id/19938824
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Thomas Oxley on the best neural device implantation method with his Stentrode by Synchron
07/26/2021
Thomas Oxley on the best neural device implantation method with his Stentrode by Synchron
is a neurosurgeon who is also the founder of Synchron which makes the . Instead of requiring invasive brain surgery for implantable neural devices, they are able to use stents such as those used in cardiology to collect neural signals Top 3 Takeaways: Stentrode implantation it's one of the simplest stent procedures. Got a $40 million Series B funding round from Khosla Ventures thanks to the success of in-human studies as well as the potential to piggyback off of existing hospital technologies "We see an avenue for a range of products that do not require open brain surgery that reaches all regions of the brain, that can take information out, that can take information in that are fully implanted, that is easy to put in, and that should open up a new industry to solve problems that haven't otherwise been able to be solved." 2:00 "Do you want to describe the technology?" 5:15 "What is the level of skill required for an implant of a stent?" 6:45 "How did you come up with this technology?" 9:00 "You cold-called DARPA to get funding?" 12:15 "Our device is meant to be encapsulated and so it is a benefit for us, so how did that work?" 15:00 "And then you guys got a breakthrough status in August. Do you want to describe what this is and what that meant for you guys and how you got it?" 16:00 "I'm assuming this potentially helped with the round of funding for Silicon Valley the Khosla Ventures round that you got, do you want to talk a little bit about this?" 20:00 "I have some questions about these first patients. It was done in Australia. Is there a difference or how does that work?" 22:00 "What are the plans for the future?" 25:45 "Do you have any ideas of how to be able to [have payers cover costs]?" 27:30 "We met each other at the bioelectronic medicine forum. Is this something that you've thought about?" 28:45 "I read that you guys have 60 patents. Is that true? And why so many?" Eddie Chang's paper? https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2021.714256/full
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Giovanni Lauricella on how to be recruited to a great startup in neurotech
07/19/2021
Giovanni Lauricella on how to be recruited to a great startup in neurotech
Giovanni Lauricella is a Vice President of the Mullings Group which is a Medical Device Technology recruitment firm. He helps startups in the neurotech space find talented people from the most experienced down to the entry-level positions. Top 3 Takeaways: "Always pull on your network, always pull on that trust factor because people go to work for people. That's what they do, especially in startups and especially really early-stage startups" "If you want to be headhunted, make yourself available to be found, build your LinkedIn profile. Let us find you, there's tools and platforms that exist" "Just realize that there is a stigma. If you're 10 15, 20 years in corporate and you've never left and you want to go join a startup. I'm not saying it's impossible, but you start putting yourself into a box and breaking those shackles of corporate life. Going into a bootstrap, incredibly lean startup mentality, hair on fire, no resources to figure it out yourself can be hard" 1:00 "Do you want to explain what you do?" 4:15 "How are you able to get that talent and be able to consistently get talent?" 9:15 "What advice can you give in order to be headhunted by you? What is like the ideal candidate and what can candidates do to be more attractive?" 15:00 "So what's what can people do, learn or engage in order to build up that repertoire and be more desirable to you or do you just already have to be a CEO to be recruited for a CEO, be in regulatory to be recruited for regulatory? How do you break into that?" 25:00 "Is that kind of the better way to do it is learn skills in a big place and then go to a small place?" 29:30 " What, what should entrepreneurs, or what should companies be looking for?" 34:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention? Do you want to talk about your podcast as well?"
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Kunal Ghosh on the advantages of imaging tools for neuronal recordings & pattern recognition with Inscopix
07/05/2021
Kunal Ghosh on the advantages of imaging tools for neuronal recordings & pattern recognition with Inscopix
is the founder and CEO of which uses imaging tools to understand the brain in both health and disease. Top Three Takeaways: Miniscopes were invented out of a need for tools that have the ability to monitor and record large-scale neural circuit activity Imaging tools have the advantage of scale, single-cell resolution, longitudinal recording capabilities, and labelling for specific cell types Inscopix technology has enabled over 150 scientific papers 0:45 "Do you wanna introduce yourself a little bit?" 5:00 "Why you did choose an imaging technique instead of, something else?" 12:00 "How did you since you started with the research and then leave academia, go into industry, and create this company. How did you do that?" 17:15 "Are you guys partnering with these big pharmaceutical companies or more on the FDA side?" 22:30 "What is the role of this circuit dysregulation almost like fingerprints of the, of these deviations from the norm. Is this something that you can visualize even predict before it happens?" 27:15 "How does it work with sifting through enormous amounts of data?" 32:45 "What are you excited about now?" link
/episode/index/show/neuralimplant/id/19451633
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Dr Ulrich Hofmann on staying in the mainstream but exploring the fringes of Neurotechnology
06/28/2021
Dr Ulrich Hofmann on staying in the mainstream but exploring the fringes of Neurotechnology
is a Professor at the in Germany working on some of the cutting edge and newest things in the field of neurotechnology. Top Three Takeaways The 8 micron limit for not causing a foreign body response might actually be closer to 1 micron Magnetoelectric nanoparticles might be the solution towards getting to the dream of having a 0 dimensional neural probe Neural Implants seem to activate those genes found in brain tumors 3:00 "You're working in Freiburg, which is bottom southwest corner of Germany, but I actually just found out that you don't live there. Where do you live?" 4:00 "Do you want to describe your work a little bit and how you've gotten into neural implants?" 6:30 "So do you want to talk a little bit about how, what you've been, what you've been up to the last few years, if you want to, the direction you're going?" 11:45 " What I was taught is below eight microns it's invisible to the body, but before the show started, you were saying, it actually might be one micron. Do you want to explain this a little bit?" 15:00 "So I want to go back to the transcriptomics, what have you been finding out? 19:45 "So deep brain stimulators, DBS has been around for decades. Wouldn't, we have seen it in something like that?" 21:00 "It seems like you've had a lot of transitions in your career and even now you seem to have these four or five-year sections and then you completely switch. Is that accurate?" 24:00 "So what did you tell the selection committee when you were becoming a professor, what was the purpose or what was the disease that you were trying to cure with that?" 31:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
/episode/index/show/neuralimplant/id/19451414
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Blythe Karow on alleviating PTSD using a wearable Vagus nerve stimulator
06/21/2021
Blythe Karow on alleviating PTSD using a wearable Vagus nerve stimulator
is a medical device veteran who is now the cofounder and CEO of , a medical device company making a wearable Vagus Nerve Stimulator to help with the problems brought about by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Top 3 Takeaways Not only veterans but first responders often get PTSD and 1/9 women will have it at some point in their lives Stimulating the auricular (ear) branch of the Vagus nerve has fewer side effects but with a calming effect on the body Diagnosing and curing PTSD is very difficult and subjective 1:15 "Do you want to introduce yourself and the technology?" 2:30 "You spun out of the University of Florida and then you were able to license it, what did that look like? " 3:30 "So you have some background in medical devices, you saw the potential in this and then you were looking to do something new? 5:00 "What were you looking for and what were the acceptance criteria?" 6:00 "So how does this work? What are some of the effects of vagus nerve stimulation?" 9:00 "So it is this calming effect, you're able to flip that stress response back to normal with the PTSD patients. Is that a one-time thing? Is that a one-time flip or does it have to be re flipped?" 11:00 "PTSD is very hard to quantify, right? How is that currently done?" 13:00 "So what are the current treatments for it?" 15:30 "So what's your device and how does it work? And how do you know that you're stimulating the Vagus nerve? " 19:30 "You guys are still in the prototyping phase and then you have to get FDA approval for this, what are the next steps for the company?" 21:15 "What are some I guess are your biggest challenges?" 23:30 "Would they have to get it as a prescription through a doctor? Would they be able to buy it on Amazon?" 24:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
/episode/index/show/neuralimplant/id/19451216
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Nicolas Vachicouras on starting a soft electrode neurotech company in Switzerland
06/14/2021
Nicolas Vachicouras on starting a soft electrode neurotech company in Switzerland
Nicolas Vachicouras is the cofounder of which is focusing on utilizing a novel soft electrode material in neural implants. The company comes out of Switzerland and has partnerships with the Stephanie Lacour lab and the Wyss Center 1:45 "Do you want to talk a little bit about yourself and your work and Neurosoft?" 4:30 "What's the benefit of soft versus hard implant?" 7:00 "Is the foreign body response, something that happens in ECOG as well, does the body react poorly to that?" 9:45 "So your guys device also doesn't have MRI artifacts. What is that? How is that and why is it important?" 11:45 How was it spinning off a company in Switzerland? 14:15 "You've seen the Swiss side and the American or, Boston side, how would you compare and contrast those?" 17:15 "You guys have been very successful with competitions and these kinds of grants in everything like that. Do you want to talk a little bit about this as well?" 20:15 "What are some kind of next steps or plans for the future?" 22:00 "You're utilizing such a soft device. Do you want to talk about this a little bit?" 24:00 "You guys also have the spinal cord stimulators, do you want to describe this?" 28:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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Anish Kaushal on what Venture Capitalists are looking for in Neurotech Companies
06/07/2021
Anish Kaushal on what Venture Capitalists are looking for in Neurotech Companies
is an analyst at Amplitude VC which is looking at investing in neurotech companies. In this episode we talk about what they look for when investing into a company 1:30 "Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit? " 10:30 "How is venture capital different in med tech versus Silicon Valley?" 14:15 "So you guys do, would you say that you guys put more research upfront into investments vs Silicon Valley-style investors?" 16:30 "Due Diligence for, six months or a year, what are you doing during that time? What takes so long?" 21:30 "If somebody wants to be like the best candidate, what would be the best candidate for you?" 26:30 "You guys haven't invested anything yet, but what's on your radar?" 31:00 "And then how about for neurotechnology neuromodulation, neural implants?" 34:30 "What are some misconceptions or what are some things that people don't know about VCs and, med tech, VCs that they probably should know about, or maybe that they think is, but it's wrong?" 38:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
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