Professor, MIT Media Lab & McGovern Institute, HHMI, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Professor Ed Boyden completed his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and a Master of Engineering at MIT. He completed PhD studies as a fellow in the Neurosciences Program at Stanford University. Professor Boyden joined MIT as an Assistant Professor in 2007, and is now a Professor in the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Media Arts and Sciences, and Biological Engineering, and an HHMI investigator.
Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical Engineering & Medical Engineering, HHMI, California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
The Shapiro group develops molecular technologies for noninvasive imaging and control of cellular function, and uses these technologies to study basic biology and create cellular diagnostics and therapeutics.
Many important biological processes occur deep inside living organisms. Their study requires technologies to image and manipulate cellular and molecular function non-invasively. To develop such technologies, we pursue fundamental advances at the interface of molecular and cellular engineering with various forms of energy: acoustic, magnetic, mechanical, thermal and chemical. Our work takes advantage of naturally evolved biological structures with unique physical properties, which we use as starting points for engineering.
Our key biophysical methods include ultrasound and magnetic resonance , and our primary biological interests are in neuroscience, cancer, microbiology and immunology.
Professor, VP Advanced Engineering; Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research
Chad Bouton, PhD, spent 18 years as a research leader at Battelle, the world’s largest nonprofit research and development (R&D) organization. Before joining Northwell, he pioneered and commercialized medical technologies in the fields of BCI (brain-computer interface), cancer, diabetes, stroke recovery and paralysis. In 2014, he invented a neural bypass BCI/brain-body interface (BBI) that restores function in individuals living with paralysis as published in Nature (2016). In 2023, Dr. Bouton and his colleagues demonstrated a double neural bypass, featured in TIME magazine, integrating brain and spinal cord stimulation with AI to restore movement and sensation simultaneously. His work has also been covered by 60 Minutes, BBC, Wired Magazine, CBS, NBC, CNN, National Geographic, and many more media outlets.
A National Academy of Engineering honoree, he holds 70+ patents and has helped start and founded multiple companies including his latest, Neuvotion, in 2019. His innovations have earned three R&D 100 Awards—The Oscars of Invention, Innovator of the Year (four times), and U.S. Congress recognition for his significant contributions to medical science and technology.
Dr. Bouton received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Iowa State University, his master’s degree with honors in engineering mechanics from Iowa State University, and his PhD from the University of Warwick.
https://feinstein.northwell.edu/institutes-researchers/our-researchers/chad-bouton
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Yale University
The Cea Group aims to develop soft, multifunctional devices that interface with the nervous system to enable precise, long-term interrogation and modulation of neural activity. Our goal is to create conformable, high-resolution neural interfaces that integrate electrical, optical, and chemical modalities for minimally invasive access to both central and peripheral circuits. By combining bioelectronics, materials science, and neuroscience, we seek to uncover fundamental mechanisms of neural function and brain–body communication, and to translate these insights into new therapeutic strategies for neurological, psychiatric, and systemic disorders.
https://engineering.yale.edu/research-and-faculty/faculty-directory/claudia-cea
Associate Professor, Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research
Dr. Chang is an associate professor at the Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine. He also has a dual appointment in the departments of Molecular Medicine and Psychiatry at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He received his bachelor’s degree from UCLA where he worked on rodent spatial memory and associative fear learning in the labs of Dr. C.R. Gallistel and Dr. Michael Fanselow. He earned his doctorate degree from the NYU Center for Neural Science, working in the lab of Dr. Patricio T. Huerta. His doctoral work focused on electrophysiological and microstructural changes in genetically modified (knock-out and knock-in) mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. This work identified that synaptic scaling of glutamatergic AMPA receptors may be an important contributor to altered cell excitability and synaptic plasticity in neurological disorders.
Following graduate school, Dr. Chang was a Goldsmith Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Burke Medical Research Institute, a research campus of Weill Cornell Medicine. There, he used in vivo brain recordings to show that autoantibodies targeting NMDA receptors altered hippocampal place cell firing in a mouse model of neuropsychiatric lupus. After joining the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Dr. Chang became a member of the Psychiatry Research division at Zucker Hillside Hospital working with Dr. Anil Malhotra as a BBRF Young Investigator. He then published the first ever study combining DTI and CLARITY to examine the ground truth of brain white matter mapping. DTI is a widely used noninvasive imaging technique that has identified abnormal brain connectivity in patients with psychiatric disorders.
Currently, Dr. Chang’s research focuses on the electrophysiological and neurochemical bases of communication between the brain and the body. Working with Dr. Kevin Tracey, he hopes to understand how physiological and immune responses are encoded by neural signals within peripheral nerves, sensory neurons, and brainstem nuclei.
https://feinstein.northwell.edu/institutes-researchers/our-researchers/eric-h-chang-phd
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis
Professor Hong Chen joined Washington University in St. Louis in July 2015. She earned her Ph.D. degree in Bioengineering from the University of Washington in 2011. After graduation, she worked as a senior fellow in the School of Medicine at the University of Washington. From 2012 to 2015, she was a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University.
Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto / University Health Network
Our laboratory is currently investigating the organization of cortical inhibitory and excitatory pathways in the human motor cortex, cortical plasticity, pathophysiology of movement disorders such as Parkinson disease and dystonia, the mechanisms of action of deep brain stimulation inhibitory functions of the basal ganglia and development of novel neuromodulation methods.
The techniques used include single pulse, paired pulse and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial focused ultrasound (FUS), functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of cortical rhythms and movement-related cortical potentials, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and recordings of local field potentials from deep brain stimulation electrodes in the basal ganglia.
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
Dr. Chestek’s research focuses on brain machine interface (BMI) systems using 100 channel arrays implanted in motor and pre-motor cortex. The goal of this research is to eventually develop clinically viable systems to enable paralyzed individuals to control prosthetic limbs, as well as their own limbs using functional electrical stimulation and assistive exoskeletons. To move towards arm control, she is particularly interested in algorithms that better model the non-linear relationship between neural activity and the complex biomechanics of the arm. Other research areas include developing mitigation strategies for non-stationarities in neural recordings over time, and implantable wireless systems. Such systems can eliminate the transcutaneous infection risk associated with current BMIs, as well as expand the number of independent channels in the neural interface. She also works on nerve controlled prosthetic hands, which is currently in initial clinical trials. Finally, her lab develops tiny electrode arrays made of carbon fiber that are smaller than neurons themselves, which could dramatically improve the performance of these neuroprosthetic systems in the future.
Professor, Department of Immunology, Harvard Medical School
Isaac Chiu is a Professor of Immunology at Harvard Medical School. He received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Harvard College in 2002. During that time, he worked with Professor Jack L. Strominger on MHCI trafficking in B cells and at the immune synapse. He received a PhD in Immunology at Harvard Medical School in 2009, where he worked with Dr. Michael Carroll on defining the roles of neuroimmune interactions in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). He did a first postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Tom Maniatis in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at Harvard University, working on transcriptional profiling of microglia. He then joined the lab of Professor Clifford Woolf at Boston Children’s Hospital in the FM kirby Neurobiology Center for a postdoctoral fellowship, where he discovered that bacterial pathogens directly activate nociceptive sensory neurons to produce pain and induce neuroimmune modulation of host defense.
Dr. Chiu started his faculty position at Harvard medical school in the Department of Immunology as Assistant Professor in 2014, was promoted to Associate professor in 2021, and to Professor in 2024. Dr. Chiu’s research focuses on interactions between the nervous and immune system in pain, host defense and immunity. His lab has shown that sensory neurons directly sense bacterial mediators and immune mediators to produce pain and itch. Nociceptors signal to macrophages, neutrophils and T cells via neuropeptides including calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) to mediate immunity in the skin, gut, and lungs. His lab has uncovered mechanisms by which bacteria invade the meninges and brain, and the role of gasdermins in CNS degeneration. He has received an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award, and Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative Ben Barres Early Career Award.
Chief Technology Officer, Co-Founder; Coherence Neuro
Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, University of Arizona College of Medicine
M. Maya Kaelberer, PhD is a sensory neuro-gastroenterologist whose research focuses on the intricate connection between the brain and the gut. Her laboratory is dedicated to pioneering a new understanding of how the gut senses and responds to the complex composition of food—moving beyond traditional concepts such as calorie counting.
Dr. Kaelberer’s work centers on the relationship between the vagus nerve and specialized gut sensory cells known as neuropod cells. These cells may hold the key to deciphering the “nutritional code” by which the gut identifies and reacts to specific nutrients, shaping food preferences and potentially influencing long-term health outcomes.
Using a cutting-edge suite of experimental techniques, her research maps the diverse array of nutrient receptors and signaling pathways within neuropod cells. Her team investigates how these cells distinguish among different types of sugars, fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals, and how this information is communicated to the brain.
This work has profound implications for understanding how the body processes food and may lead to innovative strategies for addressing diet-related diseases by targeting gut–brain communication pathways.
Senior Postdoctoral Researcher, King's College
Gretel Kamm completed her PhD in Biology at the University of Buenos Aires, where she studied human brain evolution. She then pursued postdoctoral research in interoception, exploring how the brain senses and represents the body’s internal states. At the University of Heidelberg and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), she investigated how the brain regulates temperature and generates a sickness state during acute inflammation. She is currently a senior postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Hadjichambi Group at King’s College London and the Liver Research Foundation, where her work focuses on the liver-brain axis and how liver dysfunction affects cognition.
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=es&user=enjoP5MAAAAJ&inst=15159612047463182172
Professor & Co-Director, Mark Lebwohl Center for Neuroinflammation and Sensation, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Brian S. Kim, MD, MTR, FAAD is Vice Chair of Research and Site Chair of Morningside and Mount Sinai West, in the Kimberly and Eric J. Waldman Department of Dermatology. He is also Director of the Mark Lebwohl Center for Neuroinflammation and Sensation and Lead of the Allen Discovery Center for Neuroimmune Interactions at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Kim holds joint appointments in Dermatology, the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute, and the Friedman Brain Institute.
Dr. Kim is one of the top researchers worldwide in the study of patients with itch and other skin conditions. The overall goal of his research program is to understand the regulatory mechanisms that control neuroimmune interactions at the skin and other organs. His research examines how immune responses interface with the sensory nervous system to regulate inflammation, sensation, and immunity. Visit the Kim Lab homepage at: https://briankimlab.org/.
In addition to >180 peer-reviewed publications in top journals such as Cell, Nature, Science, New England Journal of Medicine, and Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Kim has multiple grants from National Institutes of Health (NIH) including the first T32 grant in the history of Mount Sinai Dermatology. He is also supported by the Allen Discovery Center program, a Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group advised program of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the American Dermatological Association Young Leadership Award in 2019, American Skin Association Research Achievement Award in Discovery in 2020, Stephen I Katz, MD, PhD International Lectureship Award in 2022, Donald Y. M. Leung, MD, PhD-JACI Editors Lectureship and Faculty Development Award in 2024, Marion B. Sulzberger, MD Research Award and Lectureship in 2024, and Otto Braun-Falco Memorial Lecture Award in 2024. He was inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2022 and the American Dermatological Association in 2023.
Dr. Kim has an issued patent for the use of JAK inhibitors for chronic pruritus and has co-founded two biotech companies including Alys Pharmaceuticals with the venture capital firm Medicxi. He designed a pivotal clinical trials that led to FDA approval of topical ruxolitinib for atopic dermatitis and dupilumab for prurigo nodularis.
Dr. Kim was previously Co-Director, Center for the Study of Itch and Sensory Disorders at Washington University School of Medicine. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry at Haverford College, his M.D. at University of Washington School of Medicine (AOA), his M.T.R. at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He received training as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)-National Institutes of Health (NIH) research scholar under the direction of Dr. Stephen I. Katz (former Director of the National Institute of Arthritis Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases) from 2004-2006 at the National Cancer Institute and a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Dr. David Artis at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Director of Clinical Relationships, Focused Ultrasound Foundation
With her prior clinical experience as a neuroradiologist and having performed hundreds of focused ultrasound procedures since 2004, Suzanne LeBlang, MD, now represents the Focused Ultrasound Foundation by interacting with various researchers, clinicians, and manufacturers to foster collaborations. She interfaces with the medical community at various meetings in order to update the Foundation staff. In coordination with the communications team, she helps increase awareness through oral presentations and articles. She also assists the Chairman and the development team with building relationships with individuals, other foundations, and non-profits. She has published papers and delivered numerous scientific talks in the field of focused ultrasound. Suzanne received her BA in Biology and MD degree from the University of Miami six-year Honors Program in Medical Education and completed her radiology residency and neuroradiology fellowship at the University of Miami, Jackson Memorial Hospital.
https://www.fusfoundation.org/the-foundation/our-team/?tab=0&teamMember=suzanne-leblang
Clinical Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, UC San Diego Health
As a professor in both the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Anesthesiology Departments at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, Dr. Lerman carries out numerous clinical trials at UC San Diego Medical Center, the Altman Clinical Trial Research Institute, the VA San Diego Healthcare System, the Radiology Imaging Center and in the Jacobs Medical Center. His program is primarily funded by the VA Healthcare System, BARDA, DARPA, and generous foundation support. His work centers on neural sensing technology development (magnetometers, novel electrode arrays), and impact of neural stimulation technologies (e.g. spinal cord stimulation, vagal nerve stimulation, and other central and peripheral nerve stimulation)on inflammation, pain, learning and mental health disorders.
He uses techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) magnetoencephalography (MEG), Magnetospinography, (MSG) ; inflammatory profiling of cerebrospinal fluid and peripheral blood; and high resolution evaluation of peripheral autonomic nervous system to better understand the interplay between pain and inflammation in the central and peripheral nervous system, in both healthy and disease states.
Dr. Lerman completed a research fellowship through the Center for Stress and Mental Health at the VA San Diego; his clinical fellowship in pain management at Massachusetts General Hospital and his neurology residency at Yale School of Medicine. He earned his medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine, where he also obtained a master’s degree in physiology and biophysics. He is triple board certified in neurology, pain medicine and headache medicine (United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties).
Dr. Lerman is a founding board member of the American Interventional Headache Society, faculty and founding member of the Regenerative Medicine special interest group within the American Society of Regional Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, and faculty member for the World Academy of Pain Medicine Ultrasonography.
Professor, Department of Cell Biology; HHMI Investigator, Harvard Medical School
Stephen Liberles, Ph.D. is a Professor and HHMI Investigator in the Cell Biology Department at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Liberles received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Harvard in 1994, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard in 1999, working in the lab of Stuart Schreiber. He then performed post-doctoral work in the lab of Linda Buck, first at Harvard Medical School and then at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
The Liberles Lab focuses on the molecular neuroscience of sensory systems, including olfaction, pheromone sensing, taste, and internal organ senses of the vagus nerve. Some discoveries from his lab include characterizing non-classical families of olfactory receptors, odors and pheromones that stimulate innate behaviors, vagus nerve cell types that selectively control autonomic physiology, and mechanisms underlying sensation within internal organs, including airway stretch and changes in aortic blood pressure.
https://cellbio.hms.harvard.edu/faculty-staff/stephen-liberles
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering & Otolaryngology, University of Minnesota
Hubert Lim, PhD is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Otolaryngology at the University of Minnesota. He is also an Institute for Translational Neuroscience Scholar, Endowed Lions Professor in Otolaryngology, Bakken Professor for Engineering in Medicine, Director of the Bakken Medical Devices Center, and Co-Director of the Center for Neural Engineering.
Beyond his academic roles, Dr. Lim is actively engaged in translational innovation and entrepreneurship. He serves as Chief Scientific Officer of Neuromod Devices, developing device-based treatments for tinnitus; Chief Scientific Officer of SecondWave Systems, advancing wearable phased-array ultrasound technologies for a range of health conditions; and Chief Technology Officer of NeoAcoustics, focused on novel hearing technologies.
His research expertise spans neural engineering, neuromodulation technologies, sensory neuroscience, neural plasticity, neuro-immune physiology, and integrative health approaches. His work centers on developing next-generation stimulation therapies for hearing disorders, pain, and inflammatory conditions through close collaboration with clinicians and industry partners.
Dr. Lim earned his B.S.E. in Bioengineering from UC San Diego. He completed his graduate training at University of Michigan, where he received a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering, a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering.
Assistant Professor, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University
Professor Liu received his PhD in Chemistry from Harvard University in 2014, after which he completed postdoctoral research at Stanford University from 2015-2018. He joined the faculty at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as an Assistant Professor in 2019. At Harvard University, Professor Liu’s lab focuses on the development of soft bioelectronics, cyborg engineering, genetic/genomic engineering, and computational tools for addressing questions in brain-machine interfaces, neuroscience, cardiac diseases, and developmental disorders.
Professor Liu has pioneered in bioelectronics where he developed new paradigms for soft electronic materials and nanoelectronics architectures for “tissue-like electronics”, as well as their applications for long-term stable brain-machine interface, high-density cardiac mapping, stem cell maturation, and multimodal spatial biology. He is also the cofounder and scientific advisor of Axoft, Inc., a brain-machine interface company.
Professor, Institute for Genetic Medicine, Hokkaido University
1989 Graduated from Hokkaido University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. 1993 Completed the doctoral course in Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University. 1993 Research Associate, Institute of Immunological Science, Hokkaido University. 1999 JSPS Oversea Research Fellow. 2001 Associate Professor, National Jewish Medical and Research Center, 2002 Associate Professor, Graduate School of Mediciene, Osaka University, 2014 Professor, Institute for Genetic Medicine, Hokkaido University, 2021 Professor, NIPS
https://www.igm.hokudai.ac.jp/neuroimmune/en/members/professor.html
Professor, Department of Medicine, Bioelectronic Medicine, Karolinska Institutet
Peder Olofsson is Head of Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine at Karolinska Institutet. He is trained in anesthesiology and intensive care medicine at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and is a Diplomate of the European Academy of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine with more than 10 years of clinical experience. He also holds a PhD in experimental medicine from the Karolinska Institutet and is a research leader for the team in Neural regulation of inflammation.
https://ki.se/en/people/peder-olofsson
Associate Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Chris is an Associate Professor (Biomedical Engineering) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY. Chris was originally a RPI graduate (Biomedical Engineering, ’03) and then received a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 2009. Chris’ graduate work was in the BioMEMS lab of Jeff Wang and focused on combining microfluidics and single molecule imaging techniques for diagnostics. Since graduating, Chris has worked at General Electric’s corporate research center on both private and government healthcare related projects. For the last 8 years at GE Chris has pioneered ultrasound-based neuromodulation therapies with his teams, applying these new tools to combat chronic diseases (such as type 2 diabetes) in both pre-clinical and clinical trials. Chris is an inventor on 40+ granted patents and has 40+ peer-reviewed publications. As a principal investigator, Chris has led GE, NIH, DTRA, DARPA, Navy/MTEC, and BARDA-funded teams and his ultrasound therapy team won the phase 1 and 2a NIH Neuromod prize.
Co-Founder & President, Blackrock Neurotech; Professor, University of Utah
Dr. Solzbacher is Gerald and Barbara Stringfellow Endowed Professor and former Chair (until 12/2023) of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also holds adjunct appointments as Professor in Materials Science and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah. He is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers AIMBE, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors NAI. He is Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer and former President and Executive Chairman of Blackrock Microsystems/Neurotech. His research focuses on harsh environment microsystems and materials, including implantable, wireless microsystems for biomedical and healthcare applications, and on high temperature and harsh environment compatible micro sensors. He is co-founder of several companies and member of a number of company and public private partnership advisory and reviewer boards and conference steering committees in Europe and the US. He is author of over 200 journal and conference publications, 5 book chapters and 16 pending patents.
Professor Dame, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Deputy Director, Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery; University of Oxford
Professor Dame Molly Stevens FREng FRS joined as the John Black Professor of Bionanoscience in April 2023 at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics, and Deputy Director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery. Professor Dame Stevens obtained her PhD at the University of Nottingham, did her postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and led a highly interdisciplinary research programme at Imperial College London from 2004-2023 where she still holds a part-time position. Since 2015, she has also been part-time Professor of Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine in the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.
Professor Dame Stevens is an international leader in ground-breaking biosensing technologies, transformative regenerative medicine and advanced therapeutics approaches; has published extensively (over 400 papers and H-index over 100) in leading journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Nanotechnologyand Nature Materials; and was named a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher in Cross-Field Research. She is a serial entrepreneur and has significant expertise and experience in commercialisation of devices, with numerous patents filed and 4 spin-out companies based on her research.
Professor Dame Stevens has won >40 awards, including the Novo Nordisk Award in 2023, the MRS Mid-Career Researcher Award in 2022, and the American Chemical Society Award in Colloid Chemistry in 2020. Professor Dame Stevens is a Fellow of 8 Professional Bodies, including the Royal Society (FRS) and Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), and is also a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Engineering and an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Amongst many leadership roles, Professor Dame Stevens is Director of the UK Regenerative Medicine Hub for Acellular Smart Materials and Deputy Director of the EPSRC-Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration i-sense for biosensing.
Assistant Professor, Department of Bioengineering, Rice University
Jerzy Szablowski works on technologies to control and monitor the brain with molecular precision. He developed contrast agents for MRI imaging, therapeutics that can be programmed to target different diseases, methods of noninvasive control of specific neural circuits in living organisms, and synthetic serum markers that can monitor brain activity with a simple blood test. In the Laboratory for Noninvasive Neuroengineering, he continues to innovate in developing methodologies for controlling and monitoring cells in one of the most complex systems in nature – the mammalian brain.
Prior to joining Rice, Szablowski received his B.S. from MIT in Biological Engineering, where he published three papers on MRI imaging of neuronal activity and bioelectronics. He then earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) working in the field of molecular recognition and bioorganic chemistry in the laboratory of Peter Dervan, where he focused on the development of new small-molecule therapeutics for oncology that relied on sequence-specific binding to DNA. His postdoctoral work in Chemical Engineering at Caltech in Mikhail Shapiro’s lab led to the development of Acoustically Targeted Chemogenetics (ATAC), the first fully noninvasive neuromodulation method that also allows for control of neuronal cell populations with spatial, cell-type, molecular, and temporal precision.
Szablowski is a 2021 Packard Fellow, NARSAD Young Investigator, as well as recipient of the Bauer fellowship for graduate studies, received 3rd place worldwide in the iGEM Synthetic Biology competition (synthetic standard prize, best new application, best measurement), and received the BMES J&J Prize for excellence in biomedical research, and a Rice University Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor (2020). He has received funding from multiple sources, including David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease Research, DARPA, The G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers foundation, The Welch Foundation, John S. Dunn Foundation, and others.
President & CEO, Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Northwell Health
Kevin J. Tracey, MD, is president and chief executive officer, Karches Family Distinguished Chair in Medical Research, and co-director (with Sangeeta Chavan) of the Laboratory of Biomedical Science at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research; executive vice president for research at Northwell Health; professor of molecular medicine and neurosurgery at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell; and president of the Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine.
A neurosurgeon and physician-scientist, Dr. Tracey discovered the inflammatory reflex, a neural circuit by which the vagus nerve regulates immune responses and inflammation. This discovery provided the conceptual and scientific foundation for bioelectronic medicine, an emerging discipline that develops implantable devices modulating peripheral nerve activity to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. His translational research enabled development of the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved bioelectronic medicine device for rheumatoid arthritis by SetPoint Medical. It is a vagus nerve stimulator approved by the FDA in 2025; Northwell Health performed the first implantation in a patient with rheumatoid arthritis later that year.
Dr. Tracey’s laboratory contributions to the molecular mechanisms of inflammation include co-discovery of the anti-inflammatory action of monoclonal anti-TNF antibodies, which established a pathway for development and clinical translation; and molecular mapping of the inflammatory reflex and cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway. Among the most cited scientists in the world, he is an inventor on more than 120 United States patents and author of more than 400 scientific publications.
Dr. Tracey graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a BS in chemistry from Boston College in 1979 and received his MD from Boston University in 1983. He completed neurosurgical training at the New York Hospital–Cornell University Medical Center and was a guest investigator at The Rockefeller University before joining the Feinstein Institutes in 1992, where he was appointed president and CEO in 2005.
He is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and recipient of the Hans Wigzell Research Foundation’s Science Prize. Additional honors include honorary doctorates from the Karolinska Institute and the University of Fribourg, and election to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.
Dr. Tracey is co-founder of the Global Sepsis Alliance to support sepsis caregivers, which now has more than 1 million members in 70 countries. He is the author of The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness its Healing Reflexes (Penguin) and Fatal Sequence: The Killer Within (Dana Press), and he delivers lectures internationally on inflammation, the neuroscience of immunity and bioelectronic medicine.
https://feinstein.northwell.edu/institutes-researchers/our-researchers/kevin-j-tracey-md
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Dr. Tyler’s scientific and engineering efforts focus on developing products and solutions for noninvasive medical and consumer health devices, as well as neuromodulation solutions for national defense and security needs. These include methods and devices for cognitive and physical performance enhancement, as well as for treatment of mental health conditions. He is presently the co-founder of a small business working to develop and commercialize novel products to enhance brain health and cognition.
https://www.uab.edu/engineering/bme/people/faculty/jamie-tyler
Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University
Bioelectronic devices are important as fundamental research tools for probing and understanding the brain with high spatiotemporal resolution, and as potential therapeutic avenues for treating brain diseases, disorders, and injuries. However, they face key challenges, such as achieving biomimicry at the molecular level, expanded multifunctionality at the microscale, and versatile programmability at the macroscale. The Yang Lab addresses these challenges by integrating bioelectronics, bioengineering, chemistry, materials science, and neuroscience. We aim to develop novel bioelectronics and biomaterials for brain-machine interfaces, regenerative medicine, and the study of human neural development and diseases.
Prior to joining Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Yang was a Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University, working jointly in the laboratories of Professor Sergiu P. Pașca and Professor Bianxiao Cui. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University under the guidance of Professor Charles M. Lieber in 2020, and her B.S. in Chemistry from the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University in 2015. Dr. Yang drew inspiration from biological systems and art forms to design and develop a series of bio-inspired and art-inspired bioelectronics. Her studies encompass neural probes for in vivo brain-machine interface, electronic scaffolds for brain repair, and platforms for detecting human genetic diseases and tracking human neural development using human brain organoids.
Associate Professor, Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine, Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research
Stavros Zanos, MD, PhD, obtained his medical degree from Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece. He served as a general medical practitioner and a military physician before training in internal medicine and cardiology and earning a PhD in neuroscience and physiology from the University of Washington School of Medicine, where he also served as senior fellow and instructor. He joined the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research as an assistant professor in 2017. He is currently associate professor at the Feinstein Institutes and the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the New York Institute of Technology. At Feinstein, he leads the Translational Neurophysiology Laboratory.
He is principal investigator in several federal-, foundation- and industry-sponsored projects on basic and translational neuromodulation, cardiovascular science, systems neuroscience and neural engineering. Dr. Zanos is the author of more than 70 peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Zanos’ group studies the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Specifically, how the ANS is involved in immune function and physiological homeostasis in health and disease, and how neuromodulation of the ANS can treat conditions with cardiovascular, immune and metabolic dysfunction. His lab uses methods from autonomic neuroscience, neuroanatomy, neural engineering, cardiovascular medicine and neuroimmunology to tackle three main areas of research.
https://feinstein.northwell.edu/institutes-researchers/our-researchers/stavros-zanos-md-phd