George Malliaras (Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge, UK)

Neurological conditions affect one in six people, imposing significant health, economic and societal burden. Bioelectronic medicine aims to restore or replace neurological function with the help of implantable devices that interact with the nervous system. Unfortunately, significant technological limitations prohibit these devices from reaching patients at scale, as implants are bulky, require invasive implantation procedures, elicit a pronounced foreign body response, and show poor treatment specificity and off-target effects. Over the past decade, new devices made using methods from microelectronics industry have been shown to overcome these limitations. Recent literature provides powerful demonstrations of thin film implants that are miniaturised, ultra-conformal, stretchable, multiplexed, integrated with different sensors and actuators, bioresorbable, and minimally invasive. I will discuss the state-of-the-art of these new technologies and the barriers than need to be overcome to reach patients at scale.

George Malliaras is the Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge (UK). Before joining Cambridge, he was a faculty member at Cornell University (USA), and School of Mines of St. Etienne (France). George’s research on bioelectronics has been recognized with awards from the European Academy of Sciences, the Materials Research Society, the New York Academy of Sciences, the US National Science Foundation, and DuPont. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Linköping (Sweden) and is Fellow of the Royal Society, the Materials Research Society, Academia Europaea and the European Academy of Sciences.