Last year, neuroscientist Dr. Brett Kagan and his team at Cortical Labs in Melbourne, Australia, published a scientific sensation: brain cells grown on an array of electrode in a petri dish ("dish brain") learned to play a version of the classic computer game Pong. The innovative start-up Cortical Labs specialises in biological computing. Here, living mammalian neurons grow and build networks on electrodes. Kagan and colleagues succeeded in developing a system with "Biological Synthetic Intelligence" (BSI) for the first time worldwide.  Such BSI could revolutionise computing and usher in a post-silicon age.

Potential applications for the unique organic-digital convergence tools that Cortical Labs is working on are quite broad,  including novel ex-vivo models for drug screening in CNS conditions such as epilepsy and dementia; a deeper understanding about how our brains organize activity and learn; inspiration for new machine learning methods; and ultimately tapping the inherent intelligence of living neurons, for their superior computing power and low energy consumption, for the creation of true neuromorphic computing. In his public lecture at TU Dresden, Brett Kagan, Chief Scientific Officer at Cortical Labs, will talk about the development and application of this technology.

The public lecture “Brain cells as Biocomputers: The development and applications of Synthetic Biological Intelligence” by Brett Kagan will take place on Tuesday, April 25, 2023 at 7 p.m. in the Heinz-Schönfeld Lecture Hall at TUD (BAR/SCHÖ/E). Registration is required at
https://tu-dresden.de/mn/der-bereich/oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/anmeldung