- Speaker
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Michael RoukesCalifornia Institute of Technology
Presidential Lectures are a series of free public colloquia spotlighting groundbreaking research across four themes: neuroscience and autism science, physics, biology, and mathematics and computer science. These curated, high-level scientific talks feature leading scientists and mathematicians and are designed to foster discussion and drive discovery within the New York City research community. We invite those interested in these topics to join us for this weekly lecture series.
Although our understanding of the properties of individual neurons and their role in brain computations has advanced significantly over the past several decades, we are still far from elucidating how complex assemblies of neurons — that is, brain circuits — interact to process information. In 2011, six U.S. scientists from different disciplines banded together, outlined a vision [1], and convinced the Obama administration of the unprecedented opportunity that exists to launch a coordinated, large-scale international effort to map brain activity. This culminated in the U.S. BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies), which was launched in 2013. Their perspective was predicated, in part, on the current level of maturity of diverse fields of nanotechnology and silicon very-large-scale integration (VLSI), which can now be coalesced to create unprecedented tools for massively-parallel interrogation of brain activity.
In this lecture, Michael Roukes will outline the immense complexity of such pursuits and the hopes that were originally articulated and survey the existing technological landscape to assemble the requisite instrumentation. Focus will then turn to ongoing collaborative efforts toward new tools for massively multiplexed, multi-physical interrogation of brain activity. Opportunities for realizing this vision within the new field termed integrated neurophotonics will be described; it leverages advances in integrated nanophotonics, optogenetic reporters and effectors for neural recording and stimulation, and recent developments in implantable, multi-site neural nanoprobes based on silicon VLSI.
[1] Alivisatos A.P., Chun M., Church G.M., Greenspan R.J., Roukes M.L., Yuste R., The Brain Activity Map project and the challenge of functional connectomics. Neuron 74, 970-4 (2012).
About the Speaker
Michael Roukes is the Robert M. Abbey Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology. His scientific interests range from quantum measurement to applied biotechnology — with a unifying theme of the development, very-large-scale integration, and application of complex nanosystems to precision measurements in physics, the life sciences, and medicine. Roukes was the founding Director of Caltech’s Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI) from 2003-2006. In 2007, he co-founded the Alliance for Nanosystems VLSI (very-large-scale integration) with scientists and engineers at CEA/LETI in Grenoble, which maintains a billion-dollar-scale microelectronics research foundry (chip factory). He then continued as co-director of Caltech’s KNI from 2008 until 2013. Since then he has returned to full-time pursuit of research efforts with his group and collaborators worldwide. Concurrent with his Caltech appointment, he has held a Chaire d’Excellence in nanoscience in Grenoble, France since 2008. Among his honors, Roukes is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a recipient of the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, and has been awarded Chevalier (Knight) dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the Republic of France.