[2015-2018]

Title:
Implantable Organic devices for advanced Therapies (INNOVATE)
Reference: PTDC/EEI-AUT/5442/2014

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia

Main Objective: The INNOVATE objective is to develop an multifunctional implantable organic electronic transducer to record and stimulate signals from neuronal cells. These devices should work as a tool to decode communication signals used by cells to regulate biological functions. These devices are also aimed to repair faulty signal pathways acting as therapetical biomedical devices.
The transducer uses the basic principles of capacitive coupling of a field effect transistor device, but it is fabricated with innovative biocompatible and flexible electronic materials, providing low impedance, very low noise and a high charge collection efficiency. This allows recording of ultra-weak signals representing a significant advance with respect to currently available technology.
The transducer will be optimized and tested with an important class of neuronal cells known as Glia cells. These cells establish the communication protocol between neurons. Improper signalling by these cells is responsible for a number of neuronal diseases such as Parkinson and Alzimer. Glia cells regulate the neuronal communication by synchronizing their activity and generating calcium waves. These waves are cooperative phenomena and can be measured electrically. Therefore, the devices will be designed to monitor a population of cells. However the knowledge acquired can easily be transposed for single cell analysis by scaling down the transducer dimensions.

[2011-2013]

Title: Intelligent Cell Surfaces (ICS), EuroBioSAS/0001/2010

European Science Foundation- Eurocores program

ICS vision is a bio-mimicking breadboard designed for quantitative studies of cell response (in terms of motility, adhesion, self-aggregation, functionality, differentiation) to external stimuli in time and space. The breadboard is engineered with sensing units for measuring signals and inducing stimuli, and actuating devices and structures for directing the motion of the different cell types.

Specific objectives are:

· Mimicking the in-vivo environment by integration of different stimuli;

· Monitoring cell behaviour in-situ by a combination of local probes;

· Establishing quantitative correlations between stimuli and cell behaviour.

Flyer

[2012-2014]

Title: Memristor Based Adaptive Neural Networks (MemBrAiNN)

MemBrAINN aims to develop electronic synaptic components based on memristor nanostructures. The vision is to create neuromorphic artificial networks, i.e. mimicking biological neuronal systems. This will be the first

electronic device possessing the key learning/training capabilities underlying a spiking neural network constituted by nano-scaled memristors