 مايكرو يكترانيك is the art of miniaturizing I started at the first step looking to the cochlear implant for hearing actually you have the chip, it's on some PCB from PCB you have some outlet, those outlets you connect the electrode with wiring and those electrodes can interface the nerve and from the other side you have a radio frequency system you remotely receive energy to power up and exchange data means you can measure what's happening and you can receive data to turn on, turn off, update the parameter because our body is exchanging you have the nerve, you have two contacts these two contacts means to inject current and stimulate or these two contacts is to listening what's happening we are developing a chip system to implant inside the brain and this chip role is to detect onset maybe 15-20 seconds before the scissors start and inject some drug or stimulate the region to stop it in general, my career is doing chip for all those bio applications so system on chip I was doing this for 28 years now I know someone's opinion may contradict yours where's my friend Alan it's all about your perspective who are we and what is the nature of this reality what's up everyone welcome to simulation I'm your host Alan Sakyan we're on site at the beautiful Westlake University in Hangzhou China we're now going to be talking about brain-machine interfaces we have Dr. Mohamed Sawan joining us on the show hi Mohamed hi thank you so much for coming on the show thank you I'm so excited for this conversation for those who don't know Mohamed's background he is chair professor of microelectronics and bioengineering at Westlake University where his lab is focused on neuro technology to tackle neurodegenerative disease and you can find all of the links in the bio below all right Mohamed let's start things off with one of our favorite questions we like asking our guests what are your thoughts on the direction of our world wow okay thank you so much again so the world is of course interesting life is interesting progress everywhere of course I'm traveling everywhere I am very excited to see evolution everywhere everything is moving moving in the right direction I hope life is interesting and everyone has to do his homework to contribute to this move life is fantastic everyone plays their unique role in making life better and better for everyone absolutely what would you say is a key skill or essential thing for us to possess and develop as humans that help us ensure a beautiful future wow okay fundamental issue is really to believe on own capacity and do what exactly we like to do in life and push I think push as maximum as we can and I think human capacity is major is big and never underestimate what we can do to contribute and our duty is to contribute yes I love that so identifying one's own unique gift that they can bring to the world and going really strong in that direction full force and bringing that unique value to the world I love that Mohammed let's talk about your journey and how you got interested in science you were born in Lebanon right and then who were your influences that got you interested in science in the brain wow okay actually I think that brain came later but in the beginning I think culture in Lebanon I means the family issue the parent main I think how to say objective or goal is to let children educate their children as maximum as parent can do so I think percentage of education in Lebanon is up to more than 99% this is surprising for a small country so my parent father and mother actually were behind my motivation to like school and to like science was there I think some sort of wording every day was there some sort of kind of motivating me every day was behind my my starting journey of course also school in Lebanon was also those primary school not primary secondary and college maybe teachers were also very really great guys to motivate all the students to run so this is maybe the beginning of my interest and then later to finalize of course again story of culture everywhere exist not only in Lebanon but in Lebanon is more to become medical doctor first if not you can do something else so I was of course start my journey to be medical medical doctor but I think you know Beirut Lebanon war or this many issue arrived and didn't help to go through then I tried engineering for some reason and I like engineering and then from there I was doing bio medical so this is the story very quick yes yes okay okay so then yes this is very true like parents to provide their children with as much of their own process of self-discovery and education as possible so critical and then it's interesting how you ended up going from you know doing the the medical doctor to engineering to bio medical and you've had such such a long career in this space that like we're going to talk about here in a moment I want to know what happened with this big move with the PHD you moved to doing electrical engineering PHD at Charbrooke University in Quebec yes why did you decide to move to Canada and what was it like when you first got there the main reason I think my education in Lebanon was the French language then the possibility as you know Europe France and then this province this state in Canada Quebec but the dream for a guy from Middle East is to go to as far as possible you know US mainly North America so look to the map Canada is North America so it fits so this is a simple reason so I I finished my college and again war started in Lebanon my father pushed me out I went to Morocco I think Morocco and Casablanca also good city and from Casablanca I did a couple of years education and engineering and I went to Canada because my first admission to follow up for my study came from Laval University this is in Quebec again and I went to Canada like this you know so because the French and then from Laval this is Quebec City this is the capital of Quebec I went to back to Sherbrooke to do master and PhD so I did my B.S. in Laval and then PhD my PhD was collaboration with Sherbrooke and McGill University McGill in Montreal as you know and then went to University of Montreal the engineering school is Polytechnic is famous in North America and start my career let's talk about this this Polytechnic in Montreal you spent 27 years there from 1991 until 2018 you were professor of Microelectronics and Biomedical Engineering and this is you also found founder and director of the Polystim Neurotek Laboratory and that's at excuse me that's at Polytechnic Montreal so research and development in building analog and mixed signal smart devices and also the same 25 years experience on teaching mixed signal bio-medical circuits and systems processing this data understanding how to do this okay let's do the most fundamental explanation of this so how does one even start with Microelectronics and Biomedical Engineering to start processing this incredible body and the data from it right actually micro-medical is becoming now kind of everywhere universal doesn't matter any science you will see guys or people researcher doing something for bio so Microelectronics is the art of miniaturizing very small talk now about nanoelectronics long time ago and nanoelectronics is connected somehow to nano technology but I I started again because I was interested in medical but also I liked engineering I starting at the first step looking to the to the cochlear implant for hearing hearing so of course and then from there I went to I was because cochlear implant at that time many people doing this so I decided to have some innovation and I worked on a bladder control trying to help people to avoid when it's blocked or to avoid the incontinence so I build a kind of pacemaker the pacemaker for the cardio is well known for pacemaker for the bladder okay actually this is again with electronic you can take chip and chip actually is millimeter square as you know very small but you have to put some other devices in order to have everything wirelessly controlled from outside so the bladder control you can monitor on your iPhone the status of your bladder and you can decide to go to restroom or not you know this is for people that don't have good control of the bladder in any accident unfortunately this pelvic floor is affected first between bladder and sphincter and then some people they cannot void then they put some tube catheterization and this is bring infection and it is killing sometime it is dangerous so to avoid this electronic you can control by your finger and you can power up and you can let the bladder void or you can have artificial sphincter to block okay let's already start talking about you're obviously solving very important biomedical issues but we all wonder how is this process of technology even possible you take a very small millimeter chip and couple millimeter chip and you somehow that chip has connective properties to the bladder so what is this method of connection to the bladder and then also how does it wirelessly get controlled from the device and what does it stimulate of course today everyone talk about IoT and internet of things but we were doing this long time ago to control something remote remote means you have again like any communication wirelessly but of course was custom made to be near field I don't want to control your implant this is actually inside the body implant from one side you have RF link radio frequency from the other side you have interface with the tissue kind of surface electrode or cuff electrode you have a nerve and you can put some cuff around to connect to the nerve not to the muscle so our body is a network of nerve neural system and you can go to the root of those nerves connect there to control those organs so you had electrodes on this other side of the chip how many electrodes did you have many configuration we tried to arrive to solution but the most effective one was four electrodes only four to control because the system is like in a square four electrodes or how it's cuff actually you have the chip it's on some PCB from PCB you have some outlet those outlet to connect electrode and those electrodes can interface the nerve okay and from the other side you have radio frequency system to remotely connect receive energy to power up and exchange data means you can measure what happening and you can receive data to turn on turn off update parameter because our body is changing so wirelessly charge wirelessly communicate with it stimulate get data from it or this so the the electrodes where is the process of reading out how are you reading out this data from electrodes you have the nerve you have to contact this to contact means to inject current and stimulate because these two contact is to listening what's happening you can listening what's happening you can measure from this neural system because neural system is sensitive and motor means keep monitoring our brain is intelligent of course is sensing what's happening and when you need to order anything use stimulate this is a principle very easily principle now of course the complexity is very high but there is no limit the sky is the limit no anyone understand everything yet so it's very complex so this is the first step in my actually it was my phd at that time and the motivation increased and I said all those as everyone knows you know all those organs are controlled by the brain because all this are like a keyboard like a mouse for your your computer but your computer is the processor is the big chip inside right so then I started my career as professor and polytechnic 27 years to push on the brain machine interface which is wearable external or implant inside and my motivation came at that time to look to this is vision for blind what happened why someone is blind and what is the problem so with my experience with different devices already I decided to focus on vision and then the game started okay so the bladder was one example of my brain machine interfaces to help solve a biomedical issue okay now that field is continuing to advance right okay great and then now we're just thinking about okay where else can we put these you know these chips on the body to both read out and stimulate to help heal the body okay and then where next is this vision problem right okay so what is the problem with blindness and how do you solve the problem with blindness right okay and some people philosophically may also make the comment that if they may say that my blindness is maybe a gift it works my other senses but some another argument is they say that I would like to see so for those that would like to see if they are blind this is a good for them yes yeah actually it's a vision and many other organs or function in the human body like also hearing if you never hear and someone show you something doesn't matter how for doesn't mean anything for you you have to learn again from scratch to hear the same vision so vision is so very complex means so far is the most complex function we have in our body vision is the most complex function function in our body yeah yeah sure this is actually because it is not fully understood because science now as you know medical science and all these a lot of progress but vision we don't know how the brain analyze in real time what such beautiful life we have yes color and related to our past life experiences so yeah this is a connect with memory and all these actually this vision just see just seeing you have retina and you have optic nerves and we have many station like metro stations and then you arrive to the brain we know in the brain and the occipital side this is the primary region of the vision we know that then from there they have consequence of different region of the brain unknown unknown like from the occipital where does the neurons go where does the neural communication go next to make sense to make sense to are not known that mean maybe we know a couple of steps but estimated to have maybe up to 10 or 15 different step inside the brain to go and every again when you follow up science again you see a new publication from time to time to say okay no not this region this region still not completely fully understood the different region of the brain not only the primary region maybe all different region we know the cortical side is very thick cortex but the main part of the brain is this central part which is hypothalamus and all these fundamental organ and many things happening there when we are unhappy, when we are sad when we see, when we hear there are a lot of processing also very complex are not fully means understood yet so working on vision and is this most recently or when was this working on vision and blindness how long ago long time ago maybe around 12 years ago I started working in Montreal on this and actually if you look to Wikipedia and all these you can see some but today you can find maybe more than 30 different research lab in the world around 30 working on retina artificial retina artificial retina unfortunately how to say you have to be fresh blind some means because if we are blind born born blind or if we have vision for maybe 10 or 15 years it seems irreversible you cannot really recover this back it's hard to teach the nervous system about vision again retina cannot collaborate many issues but if I get into an accident and I lose my vision then an artificial retina can support couple of years can do something and you were investigating into artificial retina I am not I am working on the brain because this little people can receive artificial retina then I said why not to look to the other region at that time a group in Europe was working on the optic nerves many university supported by metronic at that time and then I was following this and then NIH in US with Illinois Institute of Technology IIT were supporting people to work on an intracortical in the primary region of the brain then I went there and said this is the right place to go then I was working developing system machine interface from one side you have camera and you have of course processor external to convert image to instruction sending inside the brain we have the military unit of stimulator and also can record or measuring what's happening to map this image in real time in this primary region of the vision where optic nerves come actually why we went there because actually retina, optic nerves LGN and other network of neural come to the this primary region of the brain because these are not working anymore so I try to do something similar with microelectronics to bring image to this region myself so this is how it start working I start working with vision at that time and we can leverage microelectronics and brain machine interfaces to implant a solution for blindness at the at the end of the optical nerve at the primary region of the vision at the end of this optical nerve and then there is you have a camera on the camera it can be anywhere external anywhere external so I wear it on my chest doesn't matter usually you can put in a pair of glasses to have something more realistic and then connect it to a processor processor can be behind the ear doesn't matter where electronic chip and you convert images from the camera for video to somehow stimulation on the optical nerve so imagine you have now an image of course we don't need if our eyes are closed we would see your so you would see the first maybe camera or the first computer with pixels the old so very binary black or white kind of binary but again if you imagine you have 30 by 30 around 1000 pixel you can zoom you can do whatever you want with this to show environment around because one of these pixel one of this pixel or electrode because one pixel means one micro electrode micro electrode you convert charge electric charge to phosphane or flight in our visual field which black imagine black and you create white dots with white dots corresponding to environment wow so there's a thousand micro electrodes around 1000 wow wow wow and then you said that you can in a sense they can think and zoom yeah actually you have external the processor again to control everything but not with thought not with thought alone you can't zoom yet with thinking with external yeah there's interesting stuff in the future coming yeah interesting so okay so yeah I was just thinking about all of the no live it no live it yeah okay so then that ended up being successful with helping people with not yet we test this in rat in monkey we are developing now more sophisticated algorithm to stimulate and doing more recording now means we are now listening on this region what the optic nerves bring from our normal eye to have pattern something very fundamental and solid and then we can create better stimulation technique yes yes and I also understand that this is a very long process it is live project it's not really three years project yeah yeah yeah and it has to yeah go through the trials with mice and with monkeys and refine the processors the chips get better the electrodes get better the data digital signal processing gets better and you keep upgrading the algorithms I mean there's so much that very very very big project need a lot of motivation and then the FDA has got to approve it for you to be able to help people of course of course with thousands of people and millions of dollars can be done faster and so this is why funding scientific advancements especially when you may have a family member that would like something like this is very important okay so this was some of the polystem neuro tech lab yeah so then of course to develop to make this project because actually you need to show you need to have experimental result on different step and then I build this polystem neuro tech lab again focus on neuro technology and with this I have very large two very large how to say infrastructure or a set of equipment okay this is in Canada we have very nice support from Canadian foundation for innovation started with my career somehow in 2000 and I have resources there for the electronic microtronic and for the bio site so I can do all what kind of system I explaining in my lab so means kind of I think of course big thanks to polytechnic and to Canada support me very very very very very largely you know more than 40 50 million with those 27 years building too large lab still there and how many people are still there actually I still now I am in leave for one or two years before I establish myself for good here and still have around 20 students someone else will take over the leadership till now I am doing this yeah exactly 12 hours but of course I am involving colleagues and slowly I will delegate great and then hopefully they keep pushing the edge for another 27 years keep going must be and especially because these big projects help people with the biomedical solutions that are needed for our health and for our creativity and for our prosperity so those were the big project so this is one very big then as you know actually I graduated 150 in my lab 150 students graduated 50 PhD and a little bit more than 100 master is big in Canada that's very impressive that lineage is very cool it is who you got influenced by and who influenced you and then who you've influenced it's the lineage it's the people that we learn from and who we help teach and who are all now off doing important biomedical I hope so I have maybe not 100% but many of them are really great great former student so with this large group of course I was working on other project of course so I have more recently comparing to vision I'm working on epilepsy so epilepsy is a major issue here at Westlake yeah I am now focusing here in epilepsy so let's do the transition so that was how long ago now has it been since the transition to Westlake so actually I start here for time in January 8 months 8-9 months so you made this transition this is again let me find the farthest place away again from the home this time to China and also what else attracted you to the Westlake vision and then we'll get into this epilepsy what else attracted you come alright so as I used to maybe said I was extremely happy in Canada great support all received all possible award if you want title, fellow and then I still have energy time I said what's next so motivation actually personal motivation I want really to to do more more work more significant for contribute more etc and then was looking to the map to the world to talk about and then I saw China booming and I say I think I will have good place to really do what I dream again to achieve before I stop working sample like this and before this of course I was I am very active I was very active and traveling and all these I have connection or bridges with Shanghai University in Shanghai as a young professor I used to came one week per year for around 15 years so I know I saw China moving and and when I see this announcement from Westlake was really something different and China I know so freedom and Caltech China something like that so I said wow this is the place because actually moving from Montreal to anywhere to Toronto or US is the same environment so I was looking to something different I have the support I have everything there not because I am missing anything but because I want really to to do some change our career as an academic we can have sabbatical and we can have leave of absence so I said why not to do something with this and then I decided to and I came to Westlake is actually somehow very interesting or impressive the way it start I came for interview I give a talk and I was sitting in the hotel overnight and then the president of Westlake and VP came to visit me wow can you imagine to say hello just say hi are happy to take you for coming for the interview and that's it no one thousand interview no recommendation from one thousand people wow okay and then they offer me the second day something like that I said actually this is or they ask me what I want to accept position I said okay I want this this is too big can you accept this I said okay that's it very simple because I want to move I was ready to move and my children grow up already so I am free somehow relatively I don't have kids and then I I came here what you know this like this desire for you know yeah you had everything already you know like but you're looking for what's next and I like that that thirst for you know for finding what's next and seeing over the the 15 years you were coming here once a week per year to Shanghai and seeing it go you're like yeah yeah yeah and Hangzhou is just so beautiful too absolutely it's part of China and like you said the very like kind of like yeah Caltech China style of like vision so multi-disciplinary and you have the potential to be you know this leading biomedical figure here and inspire lots of people from around the world that come to again build the lineage I can I see the great transition story okay so now West Lake okay how do you you know now you're starting fresh you're starting new right and you have biomedical engineering is so big so you know so many aspects to tackle the chips the electrodes the digital signal processing which area of the body very complex how do you pick where to go and dedicate your time and resources and epilepsy ends up being one of those decisions okay so tell us about the difference yeah of course in arriving here West Lake University emerged from life science life science biology microbiology all this chemistry somehow are connected to my work because I didn't elaborate on those devices which require also to work at the bio level not only with electrode we need to manipulate neurotransmitter we need to understand how the cell are connected together neuro cell we have between neurotransmitter ions so this is we are building lab on chip in order to see this neuro neurodegeneration problem coming from what we want to understand more not only try to solve with our with big risk are you simulating the chemo connectome I am trying to measure measure them first and not stimulating yet but later why not okay so measuring first like neurotransmission okay first measuring the okay okay and then this is the bio sensor this is the lab on chip lab on the chip abbreviation or nickname laboratory on chip means we want to have a chip to in the future now we talk about millimeter but in the future interface at the synaptic side between the cell is 20 to 30 nano 20 to 30 nano meters and we want to be there to see what's happening a chip on the synapse wow wow yeah yeah yeah yeah but also arriving here with this I'm just imagining the little chip like watching the neurotransmission and like being like okay it's this neurochemical and you know and they're like just reporting to Mohammed sitting in the yeah yeah okay so that's the vision yeah good imagination yeah it's really the sky is the limit you know it's fantastic this is why life is fantastic okay life science and then biomedical because those different project I said I want really to from one time of course renew my my energy then I am building here a lab somehow learning from all the past having better lab more effective and then focusing more on on brain activity and then epilepsy is is another complex dysfunction we can say because when those scissors emerge the scissors emerge randomly we never know when it happen and no way to locate where they come from inside the brain so even if they're wearing an EEG while it randomly happens we don't know we try to see something but no because actually when you go to the when you see a forest and you have fire you see fire come from one tree but it doesn't mean this tree started the fire so so you would need to know the exact at that like synaptic or one individual level where it started if not you will solve what now I see why the EEG doesn't actually EEG is very elementary interface is surface brain wave means nothing nothing for the deep level of the brain of course when you are sick you can see the brain wave it can help a little bit you measure those signal but it cannot solve so now epilepsy again we cannot go to hospital and they put us on MRI for days it doesn't work you have MRI for some scan and that's it so you need some tools to monitor over weeks to see when a Caesar emerge to catch it and to inform about so this is why EEG now makes it with optic technique which we call near infrared spectrometry nearest as we heard about this question nearest but nearest still with fiber optic to go a little bit deeper than the surface because this is non invasive just from external like a helmet you know but even with nearest with spectrometry you still need big equipment to control and so now we are building a helmet only like cap for the sun you know and you can put up down and you can wire and it can wirelessly connect you with the hospital with your medical doctor he can see what's happening is it a near infrared spectrometry with and then so I put it on and then you're reading what's happening from my house you can live normally oh it's a wireless wireless but but against this it does not solve all the problems because you cannot go very deep inside the brain means you can with EEG you can go maybe 1 cm even less including all this part with spectrometry nearest you can go maybe to 2 or 3 cm no 2 cm okay it's still not enough so this is the complexity of epilepsy what happened even if you locate this technique wirelessly you locate for example it is emerging from here or from there or from different region then surgeon can open because some epilepsy are light you have one scissor maybe every weeks or months and it's light you don't really lose control but some others you have this repetitive and it's dangerous you can you can fail if you're driving okay so it means surgeon can open for the worst case and to look to put some other surface electrodes on the on the brain directly and to locate a little bit better and then if it's surface they can do some surgery to solve remove maybe 1 cm cube of tissue and it can solve maybe 2% of cases and what do they identify in the little millimeter cube that tells them that's the piece to remove what do they find there okay because actually again with this surface electrode you are monitoring what's happening and you can see this region is the strongest one emerge first signal processing signal processing so again there are maybe not 100% the procedure but it's enough good some time now if not the decision come from bottom side of the brain nothing can be done nothing nothing can be done because you will do more side effect or destruction than solving the brain is complex you know so you have some between the 2 hemisphere you have some empty place or I don't know but in general if it's inside the cortex or the bottom side of this and again epilepsy like vision we don't know where it emerge first the cow you know okay then so you pick that as what number focus is that is that number 1 right now at the lab focus that's number 1 is epilepsy and your best strategy as the lab for that is what what is the best strategy that you guys are taking right now actually developing better spectrometry to go deep you want to develop better tools to read the depths to locate we are developing technique to detect onset I did not finish earlier means now if it's deep we develop a device like the one for the vision chip system to implant inside the brain close by where those emerge and this chip roll is to detect onset maybe 15-20 before the scissor start and inject some drug or stimulate the region to stop it okay so this is and now the major issue is the prediction yes 15-20 minutes is a good length ahead of time I thought you were going to say the word milliseconds when you said 15-20 millisecond prediction no you're like second full second prediction no no minute detection detection onset the onset when the scissor emerge between 10 and 2 and 15 second maximum but before before okay yeah 2 to 10 to 15 seconds not minute yeah yeah second that's still impressive I thought you were going to say millisecond the fact that you said seconds is still impressive yeah yeah okay and now prediction we want you take cell phone and the morning instead to look to the weather you can look to see this is of course the dream your status of your brain and your epileptic scissor stuff slowly decreasing because of your technology that's either stimulating to prevent the epileptic and it's slowly teaching the brain to not have the epileptic seizures yeah means this is 2 steps the detection onset is to stop it as soon as possible before it emerge but the prediction is to predict not second we want to predict 10 minutes 30 minutes and get you really prepared so you're not behind so let's talk about that first part so what right now do you and your team think will give you 2, 10 or 15 second prediction on where it's going to happen yeah because actually this measurement we do from epilepsy and everyone does that mean you have what you call an inter ectal pre ectal and ectal is when you are in between ectal where the scissor is already too late and the pre ectal region this is actually well known it can be somehow how to say well known not true not fully known but the idea is to be in on this region as early as possible to predict but for the detection onset detection is done is well known because we have those curves we have those measurement and we see the scissor doesn't boom like this boom like slowly you know and then go up so this starting and up it is the second I mentioned about so if we are in the beginning of those second we see something start moving is detection is not prediction is detection but the prediction we have to analyze all the past all data available to have and intelligent algorithm artificial intelligence you know we are doing deep learning with those measurement with those database in order to implement efficient algorithm to do this in real time and predict I told you 10 minutes will be will be great 10 5 minutes 15 minutes this is the objective this is the and we are doing this of course the interest not like those guys in computer science doing algorithm we are doing chip because we want to put this in chip to be real time prediction so do you make your own ASIC right you make system on the chip yeah this is micro electronic yeah you how did you design an application specific integrated circuit how did you design how do you pick how to effectively design an ASIC for this epileptic purpose right yeah 150 graduated 150 maybe time to chip done on this field in general my career is doing chip for all those bio application ok so system on chip I was doing this for 28 years now so for epilepsy again you have a kind of a processor custom processor to do signal analysis ok and to do any any measurement any stimulation all these is really somehow my experience on that for a long time now adding to this prediction this is again neural network based kind of neural networks this is deep learning deep learning and we will have enough of course resources to somehow of course more you have data more you have input more is is complex and so of course we cannot we cannot compete with big super computer I don't know how to say this but we are optimizing those algorithm in order to make SUC with this so SUC a system on chip including analog digital RF all these together in order to to rise and come with around one centimeter square not one millimeter here because you have a lot of material to integrate so yeah this the system on a chip even with all of those incredible components including a designed ASIC by you guys for the specific cases for different biomedical cases can still fit in a square centimeter because now we talk about you know the last how to call it the apple have their own micro processor alpha something I don't know I'm sorry the latest 4 4.3 billion transistor 4 1 3 billion transistor 413 billion 413 billion transistor right I estimate the chip maybe 1 inch 1 inch? not bigger if not smaller you know does apple work with intel I'm not sure how they develop this no I'm not sure I think they have their own but I'm not sure this is using the latest technology FinFET the transistor FinFET is like this memory store if you heard about those at the nano scale actually with CMOS technology a regular one those FPGA you talk about ASICs programmable devices now they have something working on 10 nano 10 nano meter so the FinFET is around 7 or 10 nano and then you guys use about that same level no we are not really competing with this because to do analog circuit something intelligent for the body you don't need to run there maybe you can do one part for example if you talk about algorithm for prediction it can be done in digital circuitry you can have one part of the chip doing this with digital but you still need very high current very high voltage latest technology cannot help you need to use well established technology for example if you need to have 10 volt a 10 volt you would need that much usually we don't use volt we use current to stimulate with even 10 micro ampere but the impedance where you stimulate is very high low or E or I give you idea so 10 micro ampere maybe 1 mega ohm give you already 10 volt so the volt is high but the current is very very small we don't need energy to stimulate I have a question out of the a really important part of what the lab is doing right now is identifying what the best brain machine will be for solving epilepsy and do you have do you have idea for what this brain machine interface can be that that's just completely brand new that maybe the the ASIC or the other components on the are just wildly different ideas is there anything like that for you to be able to provide both like you said the you want to read out the the neural communication you want to do the neural stimulation which requires more significant energy to be able to do so so like what could just not be think what are we what are we missing that could potentially be this ideal solution good question I think what we I think the missing part here is again neuroscience is complex somehow as I just mentioned maybe we should we should learn we should understand of course to come with efficient solution equation is well known diagnostic first and if you understand you will find solution you know so now I think this long list of neurodegenerative diseases because I will talk about vision epilepsy Alzheimer memory you have depression 30 or more you know all coming from this box from the brain and that connection as I just maybe mentioned connection between because actually we have 10 billion neuron in our brain communication between those neuron allow us to have this fantastic life connection so why the connection doesn't work for this and this and this this is what I believe we have to to sit down and understand this this neuro transmission neuro transmission we have more than 100 different neurotransmitters that's also great everyone talk about dopamine and serotonin a couple of but there are it's complex too many too many others although there's a power law that are used the most I think this is the missing we have really too because building now without objective is is not really interesting I cannot say useless but it's the case so because the building now if you have good designer good engineer good tools you can build to because actually put something in the brain to operate safety energy how to power up this all this issue and how long you want this to survive so many many many aspect have to be addressed I believe it was some of the world leading cyber neticians said that one day neuroscientists will figure out that every single problem with neurodegeneration is a problem of neuro communication and I think that's very interesting so yeah neuro communication absolutely connection between connections between neurons every problem that arises with the brain depression neurodegeneration and epilepsy etc is a problem of the communication right memory memory Alzheimer yes yes I guess another thing that we need to mention is what are the next epilepsy what are the next big targets for the lab yeah so as I told you in parallel I was thinking on respiration and stroke and Alzheimer those three and I don't stop working on vision and still with vision too but those three emerging strokes can we predict because now of course too late again stroke happen and nothing can be done the idea to do some again prediction having solution so respiration this is not new project also but this is asthma or is apnea what's the apnea apnea is actually newborn or elderly they have some stop of respiration like the sleep apnea when you sleep and you can't breathe well and you stay there you need the kind of oxygenation mask okay and so you want to for newborns and elderly do the respiration apnea okay that's one of them you want to solve the apnea do you think that apnea is also the neural communication problem interesting that one I hadn't thought of before yeah I'm developing feedback system to detect the stop the onset stop of respiration and then stimulate the epiglose nerve epiglose nerve coming from the brain is here to trigger the lung to trigger the respiration process wow yeah so you can yeah to stimulate respiration for apnea yeah I want okay interesting so okay so and then what were your thoughts for you stroke and Alzheimer's I mean those are big ones I mean I always like to mention this one especially for Alzheimer's because we have this beautiful library that we have in our brains and the neurodegeneration is the burning of the books in the library it's one of my favorite analogies good analogy okay so what do you think for the stroke and for the Alzheimer's how do you handle the neuro communication problem how do you solve it yeah actually almost the same principle again the idea is to learn this maybe from blood pressure from of course heart behavior from those ECGs and the idea is to avoid to go up to the brain but with nervous technique we are developing we can see the blood the blood status inside the brain and which can help to detect earlier and predict this is almost the same principle but actually I think in stroke it must be easier than epilepsy because this is the blood circulation everywhere must must detect something earlier and with again data coming from different network we can do some prediction do you see I want to actually I want to ask you this question because many people that watch would probably want me to ask you this one out of the last 25 years of building the lab and now building this lab what are some of the most important principles essentials for labs for the success of the lab what needs to happen in the fabric of the lab to have high success yeah this is fantastic question again I think many parameters not only one for example in life you have to be smart and you have to be hard worker if you are smart only forget about if you are hard worker without be intelligent also I think a lab we need support to have I think facility to build stuff but those facility of course are source of motivation to everyone to attract top notch student actually student PhD student constructing their future are the main the main reason to have success in my opinion because even you are alone and work very hard a lot of idea but the idea to make to realize you know so student and of course the stuff around I am I think 48 and all the new professor here in Westlake we have good support we have we have those resources we can have we have the stuff we need and we are trying to hire best student to work with us do you feel like how do you keep up with the constant advancements that are happening in the literature with the brain how do you read all of the advancements so that you can stay at the cutting edge in your advancements of the brain machine interface yeah not easy job no free lunch you have really to monitor actually I am I spend a lot of time in front of my screen and work hard I am involved also in in IEE organization I think you know IEE I am well means how to say involved presently I am editor and chief of the best journal in the society where I am circuit and system the name is transaction on biomedical circuit and system we are doing chip for bio general not for brain interface for bio in general and I am VP this president on on this society for all those literature I am general chair next year in Montreal organizing the biggest conference on the field biomedical this is engineering medicine and biology society EMBS we talk about around 3,500 attendees working on bio and maybe 1 portion of them working on brain and I am of course involving life science on different society so I am trying to follow up and ask my group to help reading some material from time to time do you feel like we are moving in the direction where in maybe 50 years or so that we will have a constant stream of our biometrics including the whole chemo-electro connectome and all of our heart and our micro biome and all of the data being fed up to the machine learning algorithms to predict pathology and to give us the recommendations to live the maximum life span do you feel like that you describe very well I think so this is doable now of course I used to really differentiate between science fiction and real science so I am doing real science myself I want really to help I want to solve problem now of course in the future if we look to the progress I think the progress in this field brain machine interface is not very old we talk about maybe of course stimulation like pacemaker is now more than 70 years old 70 the first pacemaker was big like that but now miniaturization of course so maybe last 20-30 years booming and now of course you can wire you can measure any parameter wirelessly you know ECGE these pressure with your watch but we cannot solve all problem in my opinion because human body machine is very complex and the complexity is unlimited is not really now is not really quantified something not quantified you cannot really predict you can solve you measure every protein every atom even you cannot dream too much but of course in maybe again 20 or 20 is tomorrow in 50 years will have better I think control of our human being in general I think yes more precise means if you compare now maybe with years how progress in term of actually now people are leaving older and older because healthcare is improving very clear means if you go 50 years the life I don't know means life hope or people were hoping to live 40 years or 50 years now we talk about 90 years 50 years later so means we will survive longer very clear and not only predict the pathologies so that we can live longer make the interventions but also that we can do things like for my own success like you mentioned at the very beginning can we have our little AI assistants that can coach us through the best possible life trajectory for us to take on that next big challenge and to help guide us to the next big challenge how we can be our best selves for your kids and their kids right a couple last questions on the way out what are your thoughts on the meaning of life the meaning of life this is more philosophical question I think the meaning of life I think one word is magic life is magic is very difficult to really define your question is very complex but actually this is connected also to the believing of everyone so what I believe on that is that we have a creator this creator is not really doesn't have laptop or I don't know this is something we cannot quantify and create a human create all stuff around actually if you look to any we talk about atoms and we talk molecules we talk about this is really huge complexity to explain and to connect with the human why a human is here you know I believe is is the creator is magic again the word and we cannot really when they try to do the same or we cannot say this is by accident or like this here this is not by accident magic what a good word and actually I am French guy maybe the word in English are missing but I think try to explain my idea as clearly as possible was the language I have anyway good magic yeah is there a French word that does a better job what's the French word magic I love that yeah I use a I use that one quite a bit absolutely yeah this is great actually when you don't have explanation yeah I must ask you as well thoughts on consciousness is it the biological phenomenon does it come and take a seat in this body and then go back to the source how does that how does the consciousness work yeah yeah actually I am not strong on these but I think again the body is nothing the brain is material and the brain is material but the consciousness or how to say there are wording the whole is greater than the sum of the parts right but we have because our life is controlled by the creator he can stop it anytime he needs some reason accident or stroke he decided to stop it and to stop it but the body is nothing material like you know what I mean so this consciousness or controlled by by what you call God or by the creator the spirit or the soul the soul yeah I was searching for the soul the soul is something different than all the others the soul of the spirit is limitless is not material is not material is virtual real virtual magic and do you think that this is a simulation what we have now yes wow there are another word what we call emulation you know what that mean emulation because simulation is only software running only software but emulation is kind of prototype or something working is not the example I can do implant big like this prototype to to show I can do and then I miniaturize later emulation I don't think this is emulation or simulation this is real world real world it means of course I believe again when the soul will quit my body I will have different body maybe or different look but elsewhere I will not disappear completely from I will disappear from life from this this real life to another maybe different planet or only a virtual I don't know this is magic and the last question what is the most beautiful thing in the world this is very difficult question yeah I think the most beautiful sinks because sink is a small and big world I think it doesn't come like this but in general be happy be happy find find a way to be happy in life and be happy doesn't mean you have last Mercedes car 100 children or best lab I don't know where be happy it can be as simple as I have as you have preliminary condition to have what you want in life be happy it means you can be very poor you can be very rich so it doesn't matter this is not really material be happy for me maybe have good family have enough revenue to survive Mohammed thank you so much for coming on our show I really appreciate it you are so welcome you are doing incredible work we wish you the absolute best with the future of your lab thanks everyone for tuning in we greatly appreciate it we would love to hear your thoughts also check out the links in the bio below to Mohammed's work also have more conversations with your friends families, coworkers, people online about brain machine interfaces about how we can really tap into neuro technology to tackle some of the most complicated neuro communication issues and neuro degeneration issues and also support the artists the entrepreneurs the leaders around the world that you believe and support them and help them grow you can support simulation our links are below so we can continue doing cool things like coming to Westlake to interview some of the smartest minds out here and go and build the future everyone manifest your dreams into the world we love you very much thank you for tuning in and we will see you soon peace you are incredible congratulations this is fantastic for the young people you are great you are great