Current research and research positions

Though we have several projects in advanced machine design and instrumentation (horology/time keeping, makerspaces, pediatric medical devices), the majority of our effort right now focuses on research that enables advanced equipment and instrumentation for scalable connectomics.

What is connectomics?
A complete map of neural “wiring” in the human brain is the next big step in understanding human physiology. This will require equipment and instrumentation that enables high-rate sectioning of tissue with nanometer-level accuracy. Computational tools can track connections between neurons in these sections and recreate a map of how we are “wired” . Current technologies can not section with the requisite speed and accuracy. We are developing the world’s first high-speed continuous sectioning and handling machines (custom actuators, sensors, tooling, process parameters, etc…) .

You are a precision engineering and manufacturing research lab, what does this have to do with connectomics?
The fundamental definition of manufacturing is the conversion of material from one state to another. The aim of modern connectomics is to convert the material of a brain from physical material into a "product" set of correlated 1s and 0s. That defines practical connectomics as a manufacturing challenge. System scaling is the activity of converting artisanal/fabrication processes from low- to high volume systems. Modern connectomics is seeking to go from artisanal lab-scale efforts that have only produced ~ 1 mm3 of mapped tissue in decades, to ~ 10 liters of mapped tissue in years. That is a scale up on the order of 10^6. That defines practical connectomics as a scaled system design challenge. Precision engineering is required when the relative dimensional tolerance crosses the line of one part in 10^5. Connectomics deals with dimensional spans from ~ 10s of nanometers to ~ 1 decimeter. That is a relative tolerance of 10^7. This defines practical connectomics as a precision engineering challenge. The level of challenge in each is high, and so practical scalable connectomics desperately needs to leverage knowledge and practice from these fields.

Current open positions:

We currently have students/staff working on inventing, modeling, design, fabrication and optimization of:

1. Next generation physical ultramicrotome (blade-based)
- Research assistant: Open position
- Fellowship student: Open position

2. Fundamentally new paradigm for sectioning - Ultramicrotome (laser-based)
- Research assistant: Open position
- Fellowship student: Open position

3. Material handling - Capture of delicate neural tissue, machines to move and align tissue to imaging systems
- Research assistant: Open position
- Fellowship student: Open position

4 . System modeling and optimization
- Research assistant: Open position
- Fellowship student: Open position