Guo wins DARPA Young Faculty Award for next-gen neural implant technology

Posted: 

While working many years on building electronic neural implants for disease treatment, Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Assistant Professor Liang Guo finally took a step back and saw the future.

He imagined implanting a cardiac pacemaker, grown from the patient's own cells, back inside the body where it can assist the diseased organ and be powered by the natural flow of blood.

guo.8smaller.jpg
Guo points out a neural circuit, alongside his team of doctoral students, pictured left to right, Yu Wu and Jordan Prox.

It made him rethink his entire philosophy regarding implantable medical electronics, to the point of veering his research into the new realms of biocircuit engineering to create autologous medical devices. 

“The best way is to learn from nature,” he said. “In this process, we can learn how the neurobiological circuits are designed from living cells. Once we learn enough, we may be able to expand to artificial designs on those biological principles.”

Guo just received $499,999 in funding over the next two years by winning the prestigious DARPA Young Faculty Award for his proposal, “Implantable, Programmable Integrated Cellular Circuits.”

Guo has a joint faculty appointment between ECE and Neuroscience. The Neuroscience Research Institute at Ohio State provides its Neuromodulation Lab space for his work in the Biomedical Research Tower.

When it comes to looking to nature for simple neurobiological circuits to initiate this engineering endeavor, Guo decided to follow the well-established lead of Professor Eric Kandel, who won the 2000 Nobel Prize for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in the simple neurobiological circuits of the Aplysia californica (also known as the California sea slug or sea hare).

Guo said the plan now is to forward engineer the classic gill-withdrawal reflex circuit inside the Aplysia from bottom up to recapitulate its natural functions.

“We understand this circuit very well. Cell by cell," he said "My goal is, can we isolate those cells and reconstruct the circuit in a culture dish? Furthermore, can we re-implant the constructed circuit back into the animal to see if it can substitute?”

Guo said using neurons to engineer neurobiological circuits is not a new idea or concept.

“It has been a few decades that people have been trying to use neurons to engineer artificially designed circuits and devices, but most of the approaches either lack sufficient controls over the design or are trying to manipulate cells to do something they were not designed to do,” he said. “My idea and research concept is we should use these cells in the way they are designed by nature. We should first replicate their innate circuits, as faithful as possible.”

Guo said they are on the ground floor of this research, but it shows potential to engineer tissue-like medical devices to eventually assist diseased or malfunctioning organs in the body.

Guo is working on the research with doctoral students, Yu Wu in ECE and Jordan Prox in the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program. 

Ohio State ECE Department Chair and Professor, Joel Johnson, said the DARPA Young Faculty Award is a significant achievement for a junior member of the department.

“It’s really going to stimulate our work in the medical cellular circuits area for neural implants,” Johnson said. “This is an exciting area of research. There are a lot of innovations happening in this field at the current time, and the new collaborations we will be building with the College of Medicine will lead to even greater research in medical applications in the future.”

Condensed version of original article by ECE's Ryan Horns

Categories: FacultyResearch