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Brain implants to repair Parkinson’s damage being developed by University of Cambridge researchers




Brain implants that could help repair the pathways damaged by Parkinson’s disease are being developed by University of Cambridge researchers.

Prof George Malliaras, from the Department of Engineering, will co-lead a project using small clusters of brain cells called midbrain organoids to develop the new type of implant, which will be tested in animal models of Parkinson’s.

Prof George Malliaras at the University of Cambridge's electrical engineering building, CAPE on the West Campus. Picture: Keith Heppell
Prof George Malliaras at the University of Cambridge's electrical engineering building, CAPE on the West Campus. Picture: Keith Heppell

The work is part of a £69million funding programme supported by the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA).

“Our ultimate goal is to create precise brain therapies that can restore normal brain function in people with Parkinson’s,” said Prof Malliaras.

He will work with Prof Roger Barker, from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, and colleagues from the University of Oxford, the University of Lund and Cambridge company BIOS Health, to place midbrain organoids in the right part of the brain in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease.

They will then use advanced materials and electrical stimulation to help the new cells connect and rebuild damaged pathways.

About 130,000 people in the UK alone have Parkinson’s disease, and that figure will grow with our ageing population.

It has a financial impact on each affected family of about £16,000 per year on average – more than £2 billion in the UK annually.

Parkinson’s occurs when the brain cells that make dopamine - a chemical that helps to control movement - die off, leading to movement problems and other symptoms.

While current treatments, such as dopamine-based drugs, work well early on, they can cause serious side effects over time.

This has led to the idea of replacing the lost dopamine cells by transplanting new ones into the brain.

The challenge is that cells need to connect properly to the brain’s network to fix the problem, and current methods are not able to achieve that fully - something the new ARIA-funded project hopes to solve.

Prof George Malliaras at the University of Cambridge's electrical engineering building, CAPE on the West Campus. Picture: Keith Heppell
Prof George Malliaras at the University of Cambridge's electrical engineering building, CAPE on the West Campus. Picture: Keith Heppell

It is one of 18 projects funded by ARIA as part of its Precision Neurotechnologies programme, supporting research teams across academia and non-profit R&D organisations and at start-ups focused on advancing brain-computer interface technologies.

The £69m four-year programme aims to unlock new methods for interfacing with the human brain at the neural circuit level to tackle some of the most complex neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, including Alzheimer’s, epilepsy and depression.

“To date, there’s been little serious investment into methodologies that interface precisely with the human brain, beyond ‘brute force’ approaches or highly invasive implants,” said ARIA programme director Jacques Carolan. “We’re showing that it’s possible to develop elegant means of understanding, identifying, and treating many of the most complex and devastating brain disorders. Ultimately, this could deliver transformative impact for people with lived experiences of brain disorders.”

The programme intends to address bottlenecks in funding and a lack of precision in current approaches, creating outcomes that could address a broad range of brain disorders that have a major social and economic impact in the UK.

Among the other projects is one at Imperial College London to develop a new class of biohybridised technology focused on engineering transplanted neurons with bioelectric components.

Meanwhile, a team in Glasgow will build advanced neural robots for closed-loop neuromodulation in a targeted epilepsy treatment, while London-based Navira will develop a technology for delivering gene therapies across the blood-brain barrier - a key step in developing safer, more effective treatments.



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