Michel Maharbiz. Cyber-beetles flying to the rescue

On the 26^th of March at the Digital October Center as part of the educational project Knowledge Stream, a lecture by Michel Maharbiz, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, took place. Michel received his PhD for his work on microbioreactor systems. In 2009, Dr. Mahabiz’s laboratory, part of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, was awarded the NSF Award for research into the production of microinterfaces for synthetic biology.

Currently Michel is not only actively developing micro- and nano-interfaces for cells and organisms, but recently his team has been recognized for their creation of the first-ever radio-controlled cyber-beetle. Michel Maharbiz’s ultimate goal is to understand the development of biomechanics and use this knowledge for the development of biomachines.

On the 26^th of March Dr. Maharbiz discussed the latest developments of his laboratory that are related to implantable neural systems that allow for the remote control of insects. After the lecture, Russian nanotechnology experts discussed the trends of extreme miniaturization of neural systems that have been developed with the goal of implantation in cellular organisms.