Events Calendar

Speaker: John Rogers, Northwestern University

Title: Soft Bioelectronic Systems as Neural Interfaces

Abstract: Advanced optoelectronic systems that can intimately integrate with the brain and the peripheral nervous system have the potential to accelerate progress in neuroscience research and to serve as the foundations for new approaches in patient care. Specifically, capabilities for injecting miniaturized electronics, light sources, photodetectors, multiplexed sensors, programmable microfluidic networks and other components into precise locations of the deep brain and for softly laminating them onto targeted regions of the surfaces of neural tissues will open up unique and important opportunities in stimulation, inhibition and real-time monitoring of neural circuits. This talk will describe essential concepts in materials science, mechanical engineering and device physics for these types of technologies, in 1D, 2D and 3D architectures. Examples of system level demonstrations include ‘cellular-scale’, injectable optofluidic neural probes for behavioral research on animal models and 3D mesoscale networks for study of neural signal propagation and neuroregeneration in cortical spheroids.

Bio: Professor John A. Rogers obtained BA and BS degrees in chemistry and in physics from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1989. From MIT, he received SM degrees in physics and in chemistry in 1992 and a PhD degree in physical chemistry in 1995. From 1995 to 1997, Rogers was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard University Society of Fellows. He joined Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff in 1997 and then served as Director of the Condensed Matter Physics Research Department from the end of 2000 to 2002. He then spent thirteen years on the faculty at the University of Illinois, most recently as the Swanlund Chair Professor and Director of the Seitz Materials Research Laboratory. In the Fall of 2016, he moved to Northwestern University where he is Director of the Querrey-Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics. He has co-authored nearly 1000 papers and he is co-inventor on more than 100 patents, more than 70 or which are licensed to large companies or to startups that have emerged from his labs. His research has been recognized by many awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship (2009), the Lemelson-MIT Prize (2011), the Smithsonian Award for American Ingenuity in the Physical Sciences (2013), the MRS Medal (2018), the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute (2019), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2021), the James Prize for Science and Technology Integration from the NAS (2022) and the IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award (2024). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.