Humans already alter their own brain states — coffee boosts focus and alcohol relaxes. Neurotech could deliver the same effects with precision and without the systemic risks. Read about how neurotech can expand from purely clinical to consumer use ⬇️ zenodo.org/records/20119636

Episode 3 of my new podcast features Dr. Jacques Carolan (@JacquesCarolan), a founding Program Director at ARIA (@ARIA_research), the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency. He directs two neurotech programs aimed at one of the most important opportunity spaces: developing tools and systems to interface, at scale, with the human brain. One program is built on the idea that brain disorders are circuit problems, and funds tools to target those circuits with molecular precision across the whole brain. The other aims to deliver high-performance neurotech to the brain non-invasively or at most in a 30-minute outpatient procedure. We dig into the engineering and biology behind both programs, potential scaling unlocks for the field, how ARIA programs drive breakthroughs, Jacques background, the role of media in shaping the future, and much more. I hope you enjoy the conversation! Other links to this episode and references below. Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:22 Why 20 years of neurotech breakthroughs haven't reached patients 00:04:08 The two variables that determine whether any medical technology gets adopted 00:09:17 Brain disorders cost the UK £100B/year and we're barely treating them 00:16:15 Using stem cells and gene therapy to build better brain interfaces 00:21:40 Self-regulating gene therapy that helps the brain quiet its own seizures 00:24:03 The non-technical reasons transformative neurotech fail to reach patients 00:31:34 Watching a 30-second brain ablation stop severe tremors 00:38:11 The case for delivering brain implants and therapies without opening the skull 00:50:56 Why high technical uncertainty makes distributed teams better than vertical integration 01:02:55 Why the UK keeps producing world-class neuroscience but not world-class neurotech companies 01:11:04 What AI-driven hypothesis generation means for breakthroughs per pound 01:20:40 From quantum computing to improv comedy to running £119M government brain programs

AI has transformed how we design therapeutics. But targeted delivery is still an expensive guessing game. Today @BobbyHollings and I are launching @deliverome with @beckypferdehirt and @radialscience at @AsteraInstitute, to fix that. 🧵

We live in a golden age of biology. So why are people still dying from disease? Because discovery and development move slower than they should. Today, we’re partnering with Incyte to change that. Kosmos is now the first agent that can compress months of drug development into weeks, from the earliest stages of scientific discovery through to FDA approval. @Incyte will be the first company to deploy it across their pipeline. Work that used to take a team of scientists months now happens in weeks. Patients can't wait, and neither can we.

NSF not only ran with the X-Labs concept, but committed $1.5B This is a bold and exciting opportunity. We want to find the scientists and entrepreneurs who want to make the most of this moment.

Today @NSF announced a major investment of $1.5B towards a new model for scientific research🚨 NSF X-Labs will fund independent teams of researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs to pursue bold milestone-based scientific challenges. This is how we revitalize America's scientific engine for the 21st century outside of traditional institutions, conducting science in a way that actually reflects the modern R&D ecosystem ⬇️ nsf.gov/news/nsf-announces-1…

Underlying all neurogenerative diseases is the general process of aging. We must strike at the root! In the short term, we should restore the health of the support systems of the brain. In the long term, we must build discovery platforms that fully capture human biology.

We should fund and build more organizations that are meant to solve problems - instead of working on them. New essay.

1/ How long do you want to live? For most of human history, aging was inevitable. It's now solvable. Apply for LBF8 cohort program: longbiofellowship dot org /THREAD🧵

@NucleateHQ and @EliLillyandCo are launching a 100k non-dilutive grant for aging. This is a pretty good opportunity if you're early and building around longevity. Repost and tag a friend. Deadline: May 15 Details in the first comment.

Microplastics are starting to attract the attention of #biotech. Looking for the latest trends? I mapped the #microplastics landscape. See who and what got funded and where research overlaps with other pollutants. engineeredresilience.org/mic…

Let’s stay at peak health without limits! 🧬 Vitalist Bay 2026 is T-30 days away in Berkeley, CA from May 14-17. Thanks to our partners, join this week & get: 🩸 Free @rythmhealth blood panel 🩻 Free @BodySpec DEXA scan Full program @ vitalistbay.com ( a unique benefit ↓)

Congrats to our sister FRO @EvEBiotech as one of the grantees from OpenAI Foundation for Alzherimer's research!

What is holding #neurotech back from being one of the greatest breakthroughs of our time? Infrastructure. We know neurotech works & the promise is huge, but getting from approval to access takes years — delaying both patient access & company capital. Our goal at PL Neuro is to break these bottlenecks. Here we share a roadmap for navigating this at the field level — because if we want to fix it, it’s going to be all hands on deck: zenodo.org/records/19240096

Congrats @Sarah_I_Daniels on the launch of a new organization dedicated to pollution exposures for chronic health conditions, including neurological diseases!

$144M for microplastic research! - gold standards for detection - understanding health impacts - removal from the body hhs.gov/press-room/arpa-h-la…

PL Neuro is officially live! plneuro.xyz We exist to break bottlenecks, accelerate progress in neurotech & NeuroAI, and to invest in innovations that benefit humanity. This project of @protocollabs will focus on: 1. Neural augmentation 2. Biologically-inspired intelligence 3. Whole brain emulation

Today we’re launching American Wetware, a design studio for building with biology 🇺🇸💧 I’m doing this together with @thisischristina and @p_maverick_b Our mission is to learn the design language of biology

NYC! Join us April 2 for a PsyMed Ventures neuro event, part of New York Deep Tech Week. Featuring: @MeganBlewett RNAi therapeutics & brain reprogramming Dr. Ann DeSollar blindfold vision ( live demo) @MindSeeIt @BobbyKasthuri whole-brain emulation RSVP in 🧵

Many good biology ideas never get tested because the researcher can't afford $2,000 in lab supplies. At @PrimordiaGrants we aim to close that gap by funding tightly scoped experiments that can de-risk impactful ideas in 3-6 months. Apply now 👇