Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions

Ana Maria Porras is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida working on human-microorganism interactions and science communication especially in different languages. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "Sometimes we see science communication as a way to convince more people to work in STEM but I think it's important beyond that. It's important that you understand the basis of how we do science and why we do science" "We think of science communication as what's happening when people go viral. But you can do a ton of great science communication in your immediate community. With your family, with your friends, with people in your community around wherever it is that you live." "Sometimes you learn a ton of stuff and then you realize it was all the wrong stuff. I think science communication is like any other scientific discipline. There are scholars, there are best practices. There are people who have been doing the research." So just like in any other scientific discipline, it's like important to acknowledge that there's like a whole ton of work that other people have done so that we don't always have to go and reinvent the wheel." 0:45 "Do you wanna introduce yourself better than I just did?" 1:30 "What exactly do you study and why is it important?" 4:45 Sponsorship by Ripple Neuro 5:00 "Let's talk a little bit about your experience with science communication. Why is it important?" 10:30 "Let's talk about the science communication and different languages" 13:15 "What's the reception been like?" 15:45 "For people who want to learn a little bit more about science communication, what do you recommend?" 19:00 "Are the science communication groups helpful or how much of what percentage of what you've learned has come from that versus just doing it?" 21:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Giacomo Valle is a post-doc researcher at ETH Zurich working in the Neuroengineering Lab to find tools for neurologically disabled amputees and diabetic persons. They look at how to decode from devices and what that would look like for the development of new devices. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "We're working on the sensory feedback restoration in people where there is a sensory loss due to neuropathy. The limbs are there there is sensory loss due to the degeneration and neuropathic degeneration. And then with electrical simulation is possible to provide sensation back," The secret to having an H-index of 17 as a Post-Doc is to have a passion for what you do an to work long hours with great people Simulations can take a long time to set up and one bad variable can mess up a week's worth of work but gives you flexibility to work anywhere; Animal work means you can't take vacations but you can do more experiments; Patient work is rewarding because you develop bonds with them but sometimes are limited by experiments 0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself?" 3:30 "How does your work work?" 6:15 "What kind of devices do you use and what kind of bandwidth is involved?" 9:00 Sponsorship by Ripple Neuro 9:30 "You do seem to have a lot about computation and modeling. What role does this play in your research?" 13:00 "How good are the simulation predictions?" 19:30 "5 or 10 years down the line, what would your research lead to?" 22:45 "You have an H index of 17, which is crazy for a post-doc. What's your secret?" 25:45 "You've worked with patients, computational work, and animal work. You have these three perspectives of research, which is the easiest, which is the hardest, what are the advantages and disadvantages of all of those?" 30:30 "What do you think will be some future breakthroughs in this work and what does the future look like?" 33:15 "How much longer before you get implanted?" 34:45 "If you had unlimited funding, what would you spend it on?" 37:30 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Jotthe Kannappan is an associate at Intuitive Ventures which is all about converging robotic systems, digital tools, and clinical needs in search of new ways to understand, diagnose, treat and manage disease. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "It's not about rejection. It's about enabling the best possible fit between an entrepreneur and an investor who is able to who's able to really do what the company needs for them" "The typical things that stand out are really well clearly articulated message again about an unmet medical needs is something that comes across really strongly in a first interaction with a VC" "It's a common pitfall to be a technology that's searching for a need as opposed to a need-driven technology." 1:00 "Do you want to talk about the thesis of Intuitive Ventures?" 2:30 "How long has Intuitive Surgical, the parents company been around? And do you want to talk about some of your investments so far?" 4:15 "What's your guys' thoughts on neurotechnology and brain-computer interfaces? What's attractive about neuro technology or maybe not attractive?" 6:00 "When a company might want to come to you and is looking for funding, what what are you looking for?" 8:45 Iris Biomedical ad sponsorship 9:30 "It sounds like the companies you invest in are a little bit further stage, or do you invest in early stage as well?" 10:15 "What's exciting for you guys at the moment?" 12:30 What percentage of people do you reject? 15:15 "What other tips or tricks are there to and you get your attention and maybe get a successful interaction out of it?" 17:15 "What are some of your biggest challenges?" 18:45 "If you had unlimited funding, what would you do with it?" 23:15 How do world political issues like the Covid pandemic and Ukraine-Russia war affect the investment landscape? 26:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Benjamin Stecher runs a blog called the Tomorrow Edition where he talks about his battle with Parkinson's disease. He has been implanted with a Deep Brain Stimulator an is also on the patient advisory board of Rune Labs where he gives them a perspective from the patient's point of view. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "It got to the point where the Livadopa medication on-off fluctuations were so impairing to my daily life that I had maybe like an hour where I felt normal per day" "But to compare it to the medication now, it's night and day. It brought my baseline to the point where I felt more or less normal. Now I'm still not completely normal, things need to be optimized, but it's night and day compared to what it was before. It's very easy now for me to have these moments where I even forget that I have this disease at all " "There's nothing in my brain that anybody can point to and say, okay, this is what Parkinson's disease is. I don't believe that Parkinson's Disease exists" 1:00 Do you want to talk about your background? 2:45 "You were pretty young when you were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Do you want to talk about that?" 3:30 "What was the timeline of the disease?" 6:15 "You decided to crack your skull open and then put something in there. What was that kind of decision like? And then what were the results of that as well?" 7:30 Sponsorship by Ripple Neuro 7:45 "What's it been like and maybe how does it compare to the medication and was the results immediate?" 9:15 "You have an adaptive DBS implanted. Do you want to explain what this is?" 14:15 "Let's talk about your blog Tomorrow Edition" 15:30 "Let's talk about your work at Rune labs" 17:30 "Let's talk about your book to Brain Fables" 23:00 "If you had a magic wand, what would you be doing and what kind of improvements would you want to do?" 27:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?" [email protected]

Dr Melanie Ecker is a professor at the University of North Texas focusing on smart polymers for biomedical applications. She has worked on conformal and biocompatible neural devices to study the electrophysiology of the enteric nervous system. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools here*** Top 3 Takeaways: The neurons in the gut-brain axis have not been investigated much by neural probes because of the softness of the intestines "The beauty about the intestines is in comparison to the brain, our probes, the electrodes don't need to be that tiny" The key to recruiting lots of good student volunteers is to bring donuts to group meetings! 1:00 Do you want to introduce yourself and talk about your work? 2:30 "What are shape memory polymers and how does it relate to neurotechnology?" 4:30 What were you working on in the Voit lab and what are you working on now? 9:30 Sponsorship by Ripple Neuro 10:30 Are traditional neural probes too stiff for the intestines? 17:15 What are the conductive components of the flexible interfaces? 19:15 Do these conductive polymers last long in the body or are they dissolved quickly? 20:45 "If you had unlimited funding, what would you do?" 23:15 Do you have any tips on how to recruit so many students? 24:30 "Is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to mention?"

Dima Gazda is the CEO and founder of Esper Bionics which is a company that makes a prosthetic arm that gains abilities overtime with you. They plan to use this 'simple' neurotech solution to springboard them solve other larger neurotech problems. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services here*** Top 3 Takeaways: We are building an ecosystem and will be building more products in addition to the robotic arm. Next will be a better user control system and then a robotic leg A physician can only add about 3000 patient-years of life but an engineer and entrepreneur can add millions because their inventions can impact more people Neurotechnology will be as big of a change for humanity as cars and computers were 0:30 Do you want to introduce yourself? 4:45 "So what is more difficult than a prosthetic arm that has many degrees of freedom?" 7:15 "Do you want to describe the device?" 8:30 "Does that improvement of control work only for a single user?" 10:30 How has the Russia-Ukraine conflict affected you as you are from Ukraine? 12:15 "Have you had any agreements with any governments like the Ukrainian government to recover injured soldiers?" 13:30 "What are some what are some of your biggest challenges?" 14:45 Iris Biomedical ad sponsorship 15:30 "Do you have any timelines?" 17:15 Do you want to talk about the number of lives improved by being an engineer versus being a physician? 22:00 What's the technology that would add a billion patient lives in the next 10 years? 29:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?" Contact [email protected]

Lindsay Hartland partners with Neuromodulation Device company Owners, Leaders, and Investors across the US & Europe to source the talent they need in order to succeed with Hanison Green Ltd. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services here*** Top 3 Takeaways: Sometimes it's better to not hire somebody but rather have a part-time position or even have them work for free in exchange for shares or honor "The main challenge any company will find when looking to grow their business is the best people tend to be working in jobs that they quite like. There's a talent shortage. There's not enough people to go around." "I used to assume that when you've got to get somebody more money, it's not. Most person's main driver is job fulfillment. They want to get up each morning and feel good about what they're going to work for and what the company's striving toward. Are they being developed, is there growth within that company? Money is important to all of us, but it's not the main driver." 0:30 Do you want to describe yourself? 3:00 "Why is this important for any startup to recruit?" 5:00 "How do you know who's a good person?" 7:15 Do you help early stage companies figure themselves out too? 9:45 "What's your opinion on that, hire a consultant versus hiring an employee?" 12:30 Iris Biomedical ad sponsorship 13:15 "Let's say hypothetically, I want to earn 250k how would I do that?" 15:45 "What's the mechanics of all this, of this poaching business that you're in?" 21:15 Do you sometimes find these leaders of companies in academia or in other fields or is the switch hard to make? 24:15 "How do you make money?" 30:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about?"

Anuj Bhardwaj is the CEO of SecondWave Systems which is a wearable ultrasound noninvasive therapy especially for suppressing chronic inflammation and pain signals. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "We're going to use a disposable coupling component that a patient uses to adhere this and couple it to the body for 18 minutes while they remain in a reasonably sedentary condition. They would do that once a day." "The cost of the healthcare system is often between one to $200,000 per year for patients that take biologics like Enbrel. So that's a huge burden on the system" "My advice to other companies like us would be to look at the SBIR program. We're very strong advocates of it. It's really been the main engine that launched us. I'd advise looking at NIH, BARDA, and others too. Then consider if they fit within the mission of what a company is doing and apply." 0:30 "Do you want to describe yourself and your technology?" 2:30 "Let's talk about the technology, who's it for?" 9:15 Iris Biomedical ad sponsorship 10:15 "You're not using electricity, but you're using ultrasound, which is something that's a little bit more rarely used. Why are you using this and how does it work?" 12:15 "What kind of treatments would you guys be able to provide?" 15:30 "So what fraction of the $100,000-$200,000 / year Rheumatoid Arthritis costs would you guys represent?" 16:30 Do you want to talk about the FDA approval process for a wearable? 18:15 Do you want to talk about your sources of funding so far? 22:30 "What is one of the biggest challenges in this work?" 25:00 "Are you looking for people to join or are you looking for anything in particular?"

Giovanni Lauricella is the cofounder and managing partner at Lifeblood Capital where they find people, money and insight for MedTech startup companies. Giovanni comes on a second time to talk about how to find investment for neurotech startups ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "If you take bad money it could really ruin a company. Good money simplistically saying is- You find an investor who really knows how to add value to your company beyond simply writing you a check." "An investible story from the eyes of an investor is number one. And number two, when you finally do click send make sure that you're doing the due diligence on the investors with that who ultimately you're reaching out to. That they make sense." "Everything else after that can be shared throughout the diligence process, which typically takes 2, 3, 4, 5 months. You have ample time to share a lot of information with them once they're already interested." 1:00 "Do you want to introduce yourself again?" 4:30 "How do you raise money in a med tech startup?" 9:45 Iris Biomedical ad sponsorship 10:15 "What is an example of bad money and how bad can bad get?" 18:15 "What are some tips for companies as they're raising money?" 22:00 "How do you get in contact with these people?" 28:15 "What's a wrong direction that a lot of people go down that could be easily fixed?" 35:15 "What percentage of that slide deck should be about the people in the company versus the technology? And then where can people find you?" Contact [email protected]

Dr. Talya Miron-Shatz is an author, researcher, and speaker who is the author of "Your Life Depends on It: What you can do to make better choices about your health" which is a book about medical decision making. She talks about the data generated from neuro devices and what patients can do with it. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools here*** Top 3 Takeaways: There is an opportunity to turn data generated by neuro medical devices into insights that are easy to digest "free, the data, free the data! And I was thinking - to whom? And what are they going to do with it? It's like someone delivering boxes upon boxes of papers to your front door. And you're like I don't know what to do with it. Free the data is great, but to help me make sense of it is even greater." "If you want to design for better usage and for better outcomes, you need to think psychology as well as technology" 0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself?" 3:45 "How does your work fit into neuro technology?" 5:15 Sponsorship by Ripple Neuro 6:15 "What's your kind of solution forward with this?" 9:30 "The trend of medical devices and neurotechnology generating more data to have to sift through, is that helping the problem or is that worsening the problem" 11:15 Is app and user experience design of these new devices going to be one of the most important factors? 13:45 "So what's the solution for this? Is it just hiring more designers and psychologists?" 20:30 "What point in the development cycle of a medical device or neuro technology, should people start thinking about this?" 22:45 Is this different if the technology is implantable? 25:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?" https://talyamironshatz.com/

Dr Josh Siegle is a senior scientist working at the Allen Institute working on large-scale electrophysiology using tools like the Neuropixels probe. He is also heavily involved in the design and distribution of Open Ephys which is an open-source electrophysiology tool. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools here*** Top three takeaways: "The dark matter problem is where the number of cells that we record is almost always less than the number of cells that we actually know to be in the tissue around the electrodes. This could be because there are neurons near the electrodes that just don't fire action potentials, their action potentials look very similar to other nearby neurons, or maybe the listening radius of our electrodes is not quite as large as we would expect it to be." "A big advantage of working at the Allen Institute is that we have very generous internal funding from Paul Allen. And so although we do apply for grants when it makes sense, for most people at the Allen Institute, getting grant funding is not an existential threat to their research." Open Ephys has recently started offering virtual 1-on-1 training sessions to help people get up and running with their tools. This is aligned with their goal of making open-source tools even more accessible throughout the neuroscience community. 0:45 Ladan introduces the episode and the guest, Dr. Josh Siegle 4:00 "What is the Neuropixels probe and how does it work? Why is it important?" 8:00 What capabilities does working with IMEC bring? 11:15 How exactly were you working with IMEC? 12:30 Sponsorship by Ripple Neuro 13:15 How does the pitch of the Neuropixels probe compare to biology? 16:45 What is the Allen Institute like? 20:15 What kind of mix of people work at the Allen Institute? 21:15 "What's the stated aims of the Institute again?" 22:00 What is the Open Ephys project you had worked on before? 27:45 What is the Open Ephys training like? 29:30 Do companies love or hate Open Ehpys? 31:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Andy Cornwell is a return guest on the show and he is the Associate Director of the Case-Coulter Translational Research Partnership (CCTRP) in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. He is currently putting together the second Cleveland Neuro Design Entrepreneurs Workshop. The deadline to submit is June 30th. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "The application deadline is June 30th and applications are open now. The workshop itself is September 22nd to 25th in-person here in Cleveland and the workshop is free to students. We provide you with all of the lodging and meals while you're here. We ask you to cover travel costs, but if that's a burden and you could not attend because of that, we have some limited support for travel as well" "Ripple hired five people that they met at the workshop. They provided a lot of expertise and mentorship to the teams and through that process, we were able to basically conduct a three-day-long live action interview and made some offers to candidates. I think they ended up hiring five people out of that program. And some of our other sponsors also made hires out of the program as well." "Innovation is not a Eureka moment. It's not something that just happens to people. It's a discipline that can be learned. And the discipline of innovation is what the workshop is about." 0:45 Do you want to talk about the Entrepreneur Workshop? 2:30 "How's the second one gonna be different?" 4:45 "Were there any companies formed?" 5:30 Iris Biomedical ad sponsorship 6:15 "Who should sign up?" 8:15 Did headhunters come to hire any participants? 9:30 "What's the intention of this workshop?" 12:30 Is this workshop something that can help even those not looking to found a company? 15:30 "What's the main thing that people should learn, even if they don't take go to the workshop?" 17:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Evan Coopersmith is the galactic head of admonishment and also executive vice president of data science at Agency Enterprise Studio. There they do contract work for machine learning in neuroscience and neurotech. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "One of the arguments I've often made is that it isn't only the hardware that holds us back. It is the software. When the software reaches a level of sophistication, suddenly the hardware is orders of magnitude more impactful." "Clearly we have learned how to understand patterns. We call these latent patterns in the data. The challenge we're involved in spoke to this idea of these latent patterns that exist in neurological data. And I think that's where the software has to take the next step of understanding those latent patterns in the same way." "One of the things that we're interested in is the unsexy efficiencies of how do you run data science analysis? In this field, how do you construct the infrastructure for it? How do you ensure that you're not driving your Ferrari on gravel roads?" 0:45 Do you want to introduce yourself? 2:30 What does AE Studios do? 8:00 How do you use machine learning for neuroscience? 11:00 How does your company work? When do they come to you? 12:30 Iris Biomedical ad sponsorship 13:00 Do you want to talk about your checkers and chess software analogy? 20:45 What is your company's headcount? 22:45 What are you guys working on which is not covered by NDA? 25:30 How do you guys run the software? 26:30 Is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we didn't mention?

Kirill Korotaev is the CEO and founder of Purple Gaze which is an AI Platform for collecting data from the brain using eye movements. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "There wasn't any significant innovation in the eye tracking technology for the last 15 years. And we thought that if we use modern computer vision and image processing techniques, we could make it much more accessible and easy to use, which in turn would open up new applications and create whole new industries." "We've just launched in the United States. The Communication Disorders Lab at the New Mexico State University has recently acquired two of our FOXIE systems to conduct research on eye movements during speech and speech comprehension. So you should expect first preprints featuring our system in about half a year." FOXIE is a portable screen-based Eye Tracking system with a sampling rate of 600Hz that connects to any modern computer via USB 0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit and your company?" 2:00 "How did you get into eye tracking?" 5:30 How have things improved since you started out in this? 9:30 Iris Biomedical ad sponsorship 10:15 "What's the company doing right now? And what are you planning on doing next?" 12:30 "What is the footprint of your device?" 13:30 Have you worked with Iris Biomedical before? 14:45 Do you want to talk about how the invasion of Ukraine has affected you as a Russian? 15:45 "If you had unlimited funding, what would you go after?" 16:30 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

E.J. Chichilnisky is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Ophthalmology at Stanford University. His research has focused on understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of electrical activity in the retina that convey visual information to the brain, and their origins in retinal circuitry, using large-scale multi-electrode recordings. His ongoing work now focuses on using basic science knowledge along with electrical stimulation to develop a novel high-fidelity artificial retina for treating incurable blindness. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools here*** Top 3 Takeaways: "The basic 3 steps of the device are to 1) read the spontaneous activity that's there and use that to identify the different cells and different cell types; 2) pass current through each of the many electrodes (a thousand electrodes in the first device) to figure out which electrodes activate which cells and how much; and 3) finally translate that according to the "scores" we have for the different cell types into patterns of activity. This is way more complicated than any neural interface that's been designed." "Plasticity in the brain is not there just because the brain wants to be plastic. It's there because it's evolutionarily valuable to have a plastic circuit. If you think about it from an electronics point of view, a plastic circuit is costly." "Our understanding of the retina is 30 years ahead of our understanding of the brain. That's not because retina neuroscientists are smarter – it's because the retina is more accessible and easier to understand. So our understanding in the retina always precedes our understanding of the cortex." 0:45 "Do you do you wanna introduce yourself?" 1:30 "So how did you get into this?" 3:45 "What is your proposal versus how things were being done before?" 9:45 What are the 20 types of retinal cells? 14:30 "What's is this a specific design of the device? And then what's your role in this as well?" 17:30 "Are you guys working with other companies in the field too?" 19:30 Sponsorship by Ripple Neuro 20:00 Are cortical implants more or less sensitive to your 'orchestra' approach? 26:15 "What are some of the biggest challenges in this or if you had unlimited funding, what would you throw that funding at first" 35:00 "How are you interfacing with these different cell types?" 38:30 " That all sounds very tedious. And especially if you're talking about thousands of electrodes, is this done by hand, or is this the poor graduate student that has to do this? Or is there a way to automate it?" 43:15 "What are some timelines that we can expect with this technology?" 44:30 "What's the difference between you and Dr. Palanker?" 46:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Duane Mancini is the host of the Project Medtech Podcast which talks about Medtech Device industry. They talk about the success storiies, advice, pitfalls, trends and more. Duane also helps run Project Medtech which accelerates medical technology to improve patient lives. Finally, Duane and Giovanni Lauricella have started the Medtech Money podcast about how to raise money for medtech companies. Top 3 Takeways: "Actually defining the problem too is a big issue. And it's something that I didn't really realize was an issue. They're asking questions that are going to validate their problem rather than actually going out and doing some in-depth research. Is this really a problem elsewhere?" "Ince you've identified a problem, you have to be a historian of how has this problem been attempted to be solved in the past?" "Regulations should not dictate your safety plan" 0:45 Do you want to describe your journey of how you got into this? 6:30 : What are the topics and themes of what do you usually cover on both of those podcasts?" 8:30 "What are some problems or challenges that a lot of entrepreneurs face and that's maybe easily fixable?" 14:30 Want to talk about your work before Project Medtech? 18:30 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Brock Lindsey and Jack Gelman are researchers at West Virginia University. Brock is an orthopedic oncologist who deals with bone and muscle tumors. Jack is a plastic surgeon interested in peripheral nerve surgery. Together they work on targeted muscle reinnervation in osseoimplants to bring back control for amputees. Top 3 Takeaways: Integrating prosthetics into the bone allows for better bone health since the bones are then under load Neuromas are transected nerves that continue to grow and cause pain. They've removed some that are the size of golf balls WVU has done 28 of these reinnervation surgeries. 500 papers have been written about this, 400 of them since 2020 0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit?" 3:45 How does a cadaver arm reinnervation work? 4:45 "What are the advantages of osseointegration? What are some of the challenges in this?" 10:45 How do you integrate these devices with nerves and how does it improve gait? 17:15 Are these just EMG devices that listen in on muscle movement? 18:45 "Is this something that's common or is this something that only you guys can do? And then also maybe how many patients have you guys worked on in this way?" 21:45 What would you improve with unlimited funding? 25:30 "You're saying that there would be an advantage to going directly into the brain versus going into the peripheral nerve and what would be the advantage of that?" 27:15 "I want to talk about WVU, do you want to talk a little bit about your institution, why you chose it?" 30:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

A few weeks ago the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) published an article based on a Freedom of Information request to look at the records of animals involved in trials at Elon Musk's Neuralink company. PCRM alleges that 15/23 monkeys used in the experiments have died and that they have been treated poorly. In a rare move from a Musk company, Neuralink published a rebuttal blog explaining their position explaining some of the nuances of what happened. In this episode, I go over some of the facts of this case, my experience with animal studies, and then play a good video from The Tesla Time which goes into more detail. https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/us-department-agriculture-look-monkey-experiments-funded-elon-musks-neuralink

Karandeep Singh Badwal is a Quality and Regulatory Affairs Consultant in the field of Medical Devices. He is also the host of the MedTech Podcast where he talks to leaders in the field of Medical Technologies Top 3 Takeaways: "Once you understand your product, who's going to be using it, you can then build a risk assessment around that. But if you do not know what your product is, and you do not know the modes of failure, you really are going to struggle with this process." "So the UK is relatively easy for software devices. The EU has now become more difficult. Whereas previously the EU was considered to be easier than the US FDA, now companies are now considering the US FDA first, as they find that regulatory pathway easier" "build quality and regulatory at the start of your idea" 0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself?" 2:15 "What do you exactly do day to day?" 4:00 "How does this how does this relate to neural implants?" 7:15 How is software different from physical devices in regulatory approval? 9:00 "Let's say you're you have really cool technology. What would be some next steps that you would see as you're trying to get FDA approval?" 11:15 "How are things different in the UK and EU versus the US?" 13:15 "What were you doing before you started the consulting?" 16:00 "What is a common mistake that you see being made?" 17:45 "Let's talk about the podcast the MedTech podcast." 22:30 "Do you want to talk about the time zone shifts?"

Adam Sefler and Radhika Gupta head up NTX Services which is a distinct for-profit entity affiliated with the non-profit NeuroTechX. They offer consulting and recruitment services with the vision to aid in the commercialization of neurotechnology at a global scale. Top 3 Takeaways: "Our projects range from [client] projects coming right out of labs, to setting up a whole new division for a larger company, to describing and setting the marketing strategy for an [international] startup, to doing C-level executive search[es] on the recruiting side, but […], that's by no means a complete list of projects we are working on" "Consultants are not always known or an obvious choice [for startups and scaleups]. But when you explain the extent of what can be done (and how it would be done), there's very often an appreciation for a fast solution that can be deployed without necessarily hiring a lot of different people, which is not [always] a possibility for a smaller company." "[…] We bring the same quality and professionalism, that you'll find at a top tier consulting firm while knowing that, for example, the top management consulting firms can charge in the six-figures for one week of work. We know that a, a dollar spent on a service support is something that has to yield something in [both] the long term and the short term [...]" https://neurotechx-services.com/business-cases/ 0:45 "Do you want to describe yourselves a little bit and what you do?" 4:30 "Radhika, do you want to introduce yourself?" 5:15 "So basically you guys met Yannick and then you really liked what he was doing and had all these unmet needs. Is that kind of how that happened?" 9:30 "Do you want to; do you guys want to talk about exactly what services and what exactly people can expect from you guys?" 16:45 "Do you want to share some case studies as well?" 22:15 How has the investment landscape changed recently? 25:00 "And this upcoming report, is this something that you guys internally generated?" 33:45 " Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Mark Domyahn is a partner at JD Lymon where they help companies develop healthcare strategies. They help companies understand their unique value proposition and optimize their market potential. Top 3 Takeaways: "the FDA writes zero checks. They give you a license to hunt, but they don't guarantee you kill anything" "What I'm hearing more and more is the first question out of investor's mouth isn't what's your FDA pathway, it's what's your reimbursement strategy. Because FDA is at least a somewhat known entity. And they're the last entity that will tell you as a company "if you do this study, if you do this. We will get you to market. We will give you the clearance or the approval." Payers will never tell you that I've never had a payer say that if you do this randomized controlled study, or if you do this post-market registry, I will pay for your device at the price you want it. That doesn't happen. So you're guessing a little bit." "The three things is: Marketing is what do I want to be able to say about my product? Regulatory is what can I say without going to jail? And then reimbursement is who's going to pay. Those three things, in my opinion should be dictating what your clinical strategy is. Not one, not two, but all three of those things." 0:30 "Do you want to introduce yourself?" 1:45 "What are some costs and benefits of all of those different options- VA, insurance, private payers?" 3:15 "What's the process of getting reimbursement approved?" 5:45 "What are some common timelines timeframes that we're looking at?" 9:30 "There are lots of insurance companies out there. So basically if you're able to get one code you got them all, or do you have to individually go after them?" 15:15 "What are some big issues that you see going on or things that, people I guess are messing up or are doing incorrectly either be it on the company side or the insurance?" 24:45 What is your role? 31:45 "So what are some big successes or failures that you've seen companies go through and maybe one of each?" 36:00 "How did you get into this field and what's been your path, your career path?" 38:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?" [email protected]

Tim Marjenin is the Vice President of Neurology Regulatory Affairs at MCRA where he helps neurotech companies get through the challenges of being approved by the FDA. Tim has had over 16 years in the regulatory side of things before now advising the companies. Top 3 Takeaways: "A big part of what I'm doing right now. It's trying to help them figure out, okay. What are you trying to do? How can I help you put that in FDA's language and language that FDA is going to understand?" "I think probably the biggest success is that Applied VR got their Denovo granted just a few weeks ago. We supported them in their de novo, but we helped them quite a bit with with writing the de novo and interacting with FDA throughout that process." "Probably the biggest tip that I always have is. Try and put yourself in FDA shoes. One of the examples: say you're in an engineering class and you're turning in some homework or you're turning in a test. Is a professor really just interested in the answer? No, he wants to know how you got to the answer. FDA is going to be the same. If they don't understand how you got from a to B, they're going to have a lot of questions about that." 0:45 "Do you wanna describe yourself a little bit? " 2:45 "What does the day-to-day look like in the FDA?" 5:30 "So for those that don't know, what is the FDA review process look like? How many people are reviewing it, what's the timeline?" 7:45 "How many people are involved in this whole process, is the weight of millions of people's lives resting on one person's shoulders, or is it more like a committee? 9:30 "What do you do at MCRA?" 10:45 "How has your job changed?" 13:45 "You wanted to share some successes that maker has had, do you want to talk about these?" 15:30 "What does it mean to get a de novo status?" 19:00 "What's timeline from start to finish for your guys' work?" 20:30 "What are some things that people do that they shouldn't do?" 23:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention? "

Arun Sridhar is a cohost of the Skraps podcast which talks about some of the behind-the-scenes stories in science and technology. JoJo Platt is the other cohost and she has been on the show before as well. Today, Arun and I are talking about the recently unveiled $9.8M Neuromod Prize which aims to reward those that are able to come up with a precisely controllable neuromodulation treatment. Arun thinks the prize could've been made better and I (Ladan) think that it is nice to see other forms of grant money. Here is the NIH announcement Here is the GSK Bioelectronics R&D challenge from 2014 that Arun had worked on Top 3 Takeaways: "The truth of the story is that none of the solutions was deemed to be good enough to warrant a phase two of the study, simply because those were all efforts that were already ongoing and the initial phase one did not result in an appreciable kind of jump in the technology. So people were basically taking the phase one money, they were retooling, rejigging it in a small way, resubmitting a proposal, five months down the line to actually get the bigger pot of money." "When you're always running against a clock that is an inefficient way to develop a therapy. Because when you're developing a therapy, you should be focusing on the right things. And therefore, because you are always on a race against the clock I'm not saying that people are going to cut corners, but just that it's actually an inefficient way, because just because somebody is getting their first, it doesn't necessarily mean that's the best solution" "How is somebody going to come up with a proposal to put in for a neuromod prize to develop a therapy focused on a novel neuro target that controls more than one function with the ability to selectively modulate it and to take that into the clinic? It just seems like very wishful thinking. 0:30 "How are you doing?" 2:30 This could be a more efficient way to distribute money, what do you think? 10:15 "I always believe in actually copying right and copying left" 14:45 "It sounds like a lot of money. But then when it comes down to it, it's actually not that much." 20:00 "If somebody loses a million dollars of their own money by not winning a prize, that's on them. So what's the harm in that? " 26:30 "What would you recommend? What would be another system?" 36:15 "if they don't meet the criteria, you don't have to give that money. You could just keep repeating that prize, potentially every two years, every four years and save that money" 38:00 "When do you think it would make more sense to do something like this?" 38:45 "Do you want to talk about your podcast?" 42:30 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Scott Burwell is the founder and CEO of Neurotype 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?"

Jeremy Greenberg works for the nonprofit Future of Privacy Forum and has written a report about Privacy and the Connected Mind. 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?"

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. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691197838/spark https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Life-Electricity/dp/0691197830 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"

Paul Grand is the CEO of Medtech Innovator 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 https://medtechinnovator.org/apply/ 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?"

Yannick Roy is the founder of NeurotechX 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?" https://neurotechx.com/primer/

Dr Marc Russo is the president of the International Neuromodulation Society 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?"

Gautam Sadarangani is the President & COO/CTO of TENZR 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?"

John Doucet 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?"

Ni-Ka Ford is a medical and biological illustrator 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?"

Dr Paul Tubig and Dr Darcy McCusker 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?"

Seth Hays'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?"

Francois Ladouceur 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?"

Sergey Young 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?"

Although the Nicolelis Laboratory 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?"

Dr. Ludwig leads the Bioelectronic Medicines Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, 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?"

Dr Justin Sanchez is a Life Sciences Research Technical Fellow at Battelle 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?"

Dr Victor Pikov is the founder and CEO of Medipace, 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: https://neuroprostheticdevicesconferences.wordpress.com/

Dr Daniel Palanker is Professor of Opthamology 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?"

Dr. Donna Hamlin is a corporate executive with thirty years of corporate, governance and strategy consulting experience. She oversees BoardWise'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?"

David McMullen is the program officer at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 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 https://neuroscienceblueprint.nih.gov/neurotherapeutics/blueprint-medtech/blueprint-medtech -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. [email protected] Please reach out if you have any questions! INDIVIDUAL PROJECT FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES: October 20, 2021 First receipt date. Multiple receipt dates. https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-21-315.html Blueprint MedTech Translator (UG3/UH3 - Clinical Trial Optional) https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-21-282.html Funding Opportunity TitleBlueprint Medtech: Small Business Translator (U44 - Clinical Trial Optional) INCUBATOR HUBS: Only 1 receipt date! October 20, 2021 https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-21-314.html 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 https://nih.zoomgov.com/meeting/register/vJItduqhqTgvHK78uuoSkwWMy8Fxerkorrk Translator Funding Opportunities (PAR-21-315; PAR-21-282) Tuesday, August 31, 2021 4:00 PM EDT https://nih.zoomgov.com/meeting/register/vJItdeGgqjoiHfRfjhhV11eGmkgbXiiRwPM [email protected]

Jon is the founder of Greenlight Guru (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."

Professor Aldo Faisal 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?" https://beetl.ai/introduction Interesting videos about Dr Faisal's work: https://youtu.be/xvZbDQ7JmbE https://youtu.be/YHxm0q4rzc0 https://youtu.be/rnNBZW8yRRM https://youtu.be/JsX21xFLwbU https://youtu.be/hjNFyp2S9Pk

Dr Florian Solzbacher is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Blackrock Neurotech 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?"

Thomas Oxley is a neurosurgeon who is also the founder of Synchron which makes the Stentrode. 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

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?" https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Sand-Hill-Road-Venture/dp/059308358X

Kunal Ghosh is the founder and CEO of Inscopix 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?" Head-mounted Calcium Imaging on a Rhesus Macaque paper link

Ulrich Hofmann is a Professor at the University of Freiburg 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?"