Café Scientifique - Michel Maharbiz

The emerging field of bioelectronic medicine seeks methods for deciphering and modulating physiological activity in the body for both sensing and therapy. Current approaches to interfacing directly with organs and nerves rely heavily on wires, creating problems for chronic use, while emerging wireless approaches do not scale down into the sub-millimeter size range necessary to be truly "transparent" to the body.  Recently, we demonstrated neural dust, a wireless and scalable ultrasonic backscatter system for powering and communicating with implanted bioelectronics.  In this talk, I will present the technology and material challenges in the space and discuss the neural dust technology as a platform for vanishingly small implantables.

Michel M. Maharbiz is a Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include the extreme miniaturization of technology focused on building synthetic interfaces to cells and organisms. He is known as one of the co-inventors of "neural dust", an ultrasonic interface for vanishingly small implants in the body.

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Café Scientifique is a place where anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology. The Café provides a forum for debating science issues outside a traditional academic context. We are committed to promoting public engagement with science and to making science accountable - all spoken in plain English. There is no admission charge to attend our events.

Building on its great success outside the United States, Café Scientifique Silicon Valley is the first such Café on the West Coast. We meet monthly to discuss a variety of science topics.