Neural Microsystems Laboratory

Highlights of Neural Microsystems Lab in 2010

1. Sindhu Anand, doctoral student in Neural Microsystems laboratory, was awarded the Neural Interfaces 2010 conference Excellence travel award.

2. Publication in press: Title "Highly doped polycrystalline silicon thin films reduce biological noise in electrical recordings from single neurons," by Rajarshi Saha, Nathan Jackson, Chetan Patel and Jit Muthusway chosen as cover page article in IEEE Trans Neural Systems and Rehab Eng , Oct. 2010.

3. Validation of our smart, adaptive implantable microelectrode technology in the brain is now published in Frontiers in Neuroengineering, 2010 under the title "Long-term neural recordings using MEMS based movable microelectrodes in the brain," by Nathan Jackson, Arati Sridharan, Sindhu Anand, Michael Baker, Murat Okandan and Jit Muthuswamy, to be published in . (article).

4. Dr. Jit Muthuswamy was invited to speak on “Micromotion and its Effects on Long-Term Viability of Brain-Machine Interfaces,” in the Neural Interfaces conference, June 20-23, 2010, Long Beach, CA.

5. Dr. Jit Muthuswamy was invited to speak on “Packaging and Interconnects for Implantable MEMS devices” at the CMOS Emerging technologies workshop, May 19-21, 2010 at Whistler, BC, Canada.

6. Dr. Jit Muthuswamy was invited to speak on “Engineering adaptive neural interfaces,” at the BME seminar series of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ on Sept. 13, 2010.

7. Dr. Jit Muthuswamy was invited to speak on “Implantables for the brain” at the Annual Medical Electronics symposium of the MEPTEC/SMTA held at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ on Sept. 22-23, 2010.

Highlights of Neural Microsystems Lab in 2009

1. Dr. Jit Muthuswamy was invited to speak at a a focus session on “Intracortical Probes: How to get Probes and Neurons Together,” at the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Munich, Sept. 7-12, 2009. The title of his presentation was “Bringing neurons and devices together in vivo using mechanical depth control of implanted microprobes.”

2. Manuscript titled “Non-hermetic Encapsulation Materials for MEMS Based Moveable Microelectrodes for Long-Term Implantation in the Brain,” authored by Nathan Jackson (doctoral student), Sindhu Anand (doctoral student), Murat Okandan, and J Muthuswamy is now in press for publication in IEEE/ASME Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems.

3. Massoud L. Khraiche, doctoral student in the Neural Microsystems lab successfully defends his doctoral dissertation titled, "Novel biochip for simultaneously monitoring mechanical and electrical properties of neurons in vitro" on July 24, 2009 and will join the Biomedical Engineering department at University of California, San Diego as a post-doctoral fellow.

4. Massoud L. Khraiche (doctoral student in Neural Microsystems lab), was awarded First Place for his Distinguished Oral Presentation at the 10th Annual University of California Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium, held at Merced June 19-21, 2009. His paper was titled "Early Onset of Electrical Activity in Developing Neurons Cultured on Carbon Nanotube Immobilized Microelectrodes" and authored by Massoud Khraiche, Nathan Jackson and Jit Muthuswamy.

5. Nathan Jackson, doctoral student in the Neural Microsystems lab successfully defends his doctoral dissertation titled, "Neural Recordings in the Brain Using Novel Movable MEMS Microelectrode Arrays," on May 29, 2009. Nate will now take up his position as Micro-medical Implant Engineer in NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute, Tuebingen, Germany.

6. Manuscript titled "Assessment of gliosis around moveable implants in the brain," authored by Paula Stice (doctoral student) and J Muthuswamy is now in press to be published in Journal of Neural Engineering. The paper is available for free in the IOP stacks until July 25, 2009.

7. Arati Sridharan, doctoral student in the Neural Microsystems lab successfully defends her doctoral dissertation titled, "Photoelectrochemical Characterization of Bacterial Light Harvesting Structures for Novel Optoelectronic Biohybrid Devices," in April 2009 and joins the Neural Microsystems lab as a post-doctoral fellow.

8. Manuscript titled “Optoelectronic energy transfer at novel biohybrid interfaces using light harvesting complexes from Chloroflexus aurantiacus,” authored by Arati Sridharan (doctoral student), J Muthuswamy and V Pizziconi, is now in press for publication in Langmuir.

9. Paula Stice, doctoral student in Neural Microsystems lab successfully defends her doctoral dissertation titled, "Assessment of the Reactive Astrocyte Response Around Fixed and Movable Chronic Microimplants in the Brain," in February 2009 and will join the US patent and trademark office as a patent examiner.

Highlights of Neural Microsystems Lab in 2008

1. Nathan Jackson, doctoral student and Prof. Muthuswamy's article titled "Flexible Chip Scale Package and Interconnect for Implantable MEMS Movable Microelectrodes for the Brain," is now in press for publication in IEEE/ASME Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems.

2. Outstanding Paper Award

Abstract titled "Flexible Interconnect and Packaging for MEMS-based Moveable Neural Microelectrodes" authored by doctoral student Nathan Jackson and Jit Muthuswamy was selected as one of two Outstanding Papers of the 41st International Symposium on Microelectronics and Packaging, held in Providence, Rhode Island, November 2-6, 2008.

3. Tingting Wang, PhD graduate and Prof. Muthuswamy's article titled "Immunosensor for detection of inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA using quartz crystal microbalance," is now published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

4. Article titled "Immobilization of Functional Light Antenna Structures Derived From The Filamentous Green Bacterium Chloroflexus aurantiacus," authored by Arati Sridharan (doctoral student), Jit Muthuswamy, Jeffrey LaBelle and Vincent Pizziconi is now published in Langmuir.

5. Tilak Jain (PhD graduate) and Prof. Muthuswamy's paper originally published in the journal Lab on a Chip was recently profiled in the magazine Chemical Biology published by the Royal Society of Chemistry as a news feature.

6. Tilak Jain (PhD graduate) and Prof. Muthuswamy's article titled "Microelectrode array (MEA) platform for targeted neuronal transfection and recording," published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering Letters (55(2):827-832,2008).

7. Research from our paper titled, "Microelectrode array (MEA) platform for targeted neuronal transfection and recording" authored by T Jain (mentored doctoral student) and J Muthuswamy published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering Letters was recently featured as a news article in February 2008 issue of IEEE Spectrum (monthly magazine of IEEE with a circulation of over 390,000 worldwide) -http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb08/5944.

8. Nathan Jackson (doctoral student) received the 1st place award for the best student research poster at the IMAPS (International Microelectronics and Packaging Society) 4th International conference and exhibition on Device Packaging held in Scottsdale, Arizona on March 17-19.

9. Nathan Jackson (doctoral student) and Prof. Muthuswamy's article titled "Artificial dural sealant that allows multiple penetrations of long-term implantable brain probes" in press for Journal of Neuroscience methods.

10. Rajarshi Saha, a graduate student in Neural Microsystems laboratory successfully defends his doctoral dissertation titled "Novel polysilicon based implants for single neuronal recording and stimulation," in February 2008 and joins a post-doctoral position in Georgia Tech, Atlanta.

11. Prof. Muthuswamy was invited to make a presentation in a session on "Novel Bioengineering devices," in Biozona 2008, in Tuscon, AZ on April 8, 2008.

12. Prof. Muthuswamy, was invited to make a presentation on "CMOS assisted gene injection," at the upcoming 2008 CMOS Emerging Technologies Workshop in Vancouver, BC, Canada on Aug. 6th, 2008.