We are delighted to announce that the Maxwell Centre, University of Cambridge has joined a three-year collaboration with the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) and multiple Cambridge partners, to engineer a new generation of neuro-technologies designed to treat depression, dementia, chronic pain, epilepsy and injuries to the nervous system.
Neurological and mental health disorders will affect four in every five people in their lifetimes, and present a greater overall health burden than cancer and cardiovascular disease combined.
Neuro-technology – where technology is used to interact with the nervous system - has the potential to deliver revolutionary new treatments for these disorders, in much the same way that heart pacemakers, cochlear implants and spinal implants have transformed medicine in recent decades. These technologies also have the potential to treat autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and type-1 diabetes.
Cambridge’s partnership with ARIA will create a home for original thinkers who are struggling to find the funding, space and mentoring needed to stress-test their radical ideas. It will scour the UK for innovators from any background with a highly ambitious concept for a technology that could transform brain health. The very best will be offered the resources to test and then scale up their idea at pace, so it can be brought to patients across the world quickly and affordably.
Our vision is to unlock more treatments with fewer side-effects, creating a world where personalised brain health care is available to everyone.
The science of building technology small enough, precise enough and cheap enough to make a global impact requires an environment where the very best minds from across the UK can collaborate, dream up ambitious ideas and test them without fear of failure. The new partnership extends beyond academia, it is open to innovators from all backgrounds and locations. We want everyone to be able to access our expertise and resources so that they can turn their concepts into mass produced, affordable and clinic-ready technologies to benefit millions of people suffering around the world.
We will be delivering the Blue Sky phase, which opens the doors of the Maxwell Centre, University of Cambridge, the Milner Therapeutics Institute and Babraham Research Campus to welcome Fellows and a wider ecosystem of NeuroTech innovators. With us, the very best minds will test their ‘Blue Sky’ proof-of-concept ideas through dedicated funding for access to leading facilities and mentorship.
Our partners
Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP)
Milner Therapeutics Institute
Departments of Engineering and Psychiatry and Cambridge Neuroscience
Babraham Research Campus University of Cambridge
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT)
Cambridge Network
Vellos
(image credits: Bioelectronics Laboratory, University of Cambridge)