Precision Neurotechnologies
Backed by £69m, this programme will unlock new methods to understand, identify, and treat neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders
Why this programme
Neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders have an enormous social and economic impact – in 2019, brain disorders accounted for 500m years of healthy life lost.
Despite advances in brain-computer interfacing technologies, there have been very few serious attempts at engaging with the central nervous system at the circuit level, where disorders ranging from epilepsy to depression occur.
What we’re shooting for
We see a critical opportunity to develop next-generation tools that interface with the human brain at the circuit level.
Operating across distributed brain regions and with cell type specificity, these new platform technologies could yield breakthroughs in disease understanding and diagnosis, alleviate bottlenecks in existing therapies, and move us closer to a world in which personalised brain health care is available to everyone.
Our goal: to unite the frontiers of engineered biology and hardware to treat many of the complex and devastating brain disorders affecting individuals and communities worldwide.
Documents and links
Additional context for this programme
- Opportunity space: Scalable Neural Interfaces [PDF]
- Programme thesis: Precision Neurotechnologies [PDF]
- Jacques’ solicitation presentation
- Programme workshop report [PDF]
Applicant resources
- Call for proposals [PDF]
- Concept paper guidelines [PDF]
- Full proposal guidelines [PDF]
- Walkthrough for the application portal [PDF]
- How we select projects [PDF]
- Clarification questions specific to this call
About ARIA funding
If you require accessible documents, please contact clarifications@aria.org.uk
This programme is split into three technical areas (TAs), each with its own distinct objectives.
Development
Focuses on the development of next-generation precision neurotechnologies to enable circuit-level access to the central nervous system, with cell type specificity and across distributed macro- and micro-brain circuits.
TA1
Application
Focuses on applying precision neurotechnologies to demonstrate therapeutically relevant capabilities that are not possible with existing approaches.
TA2
Adoption
Focuses on understanding the factors that will be critical for adoption of future neurotechnologies, including patient engagement, healthcare economic analyses, and consideration of ethical issues.
TA3
Funding
Applications for this call are now closed
This solicitation seeks R&D Creators, which are individuals and teams that ARIA will fund to:
- Develop a suite of next-generation precision neurotechnologies to enable circuit-level access to the central nervous system, with cell type specificity and across distributed macro- and micro-brain circuits.
- Demonstrate that precision neurotechnologies, when combined with advances in computation simulations, will unlock entirely new therapeutic capabilities that are not possible with existing approaches.
- Understand the factors that will be critical for the adoption of future neurotechnologies, with the goal of developing concrete and actionable recommendations to the wider neurotechnology community.
Meet Jacques
Precision Neurotechnologies has been designed and overseen by Programme Director Jacques Carolan with feedback from the R&D community, as part of the opportunity space Scalable Neural Interfaces.
Jacques is an applied physicist and neuroscientist. He spent a decade building quantum computing technologies before pivoting into systems neuroscience where he developed optical technologies to understand living brains. Prior to ARIA, Jacques was a BBSRC Discovery Fellow at the University College London.
