Neurotechnology and the Future of Thought – A CamBRAIN Panel Discussion

Professor George Malliaras

Department of Engineering
George Malliaras is the Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge (UK) and Director of the Institute for Biomedical Innovation. Prior to his appointment at Cambridge, he held faculty positions at Cornell University (USA) and the École des Mines de Saint-Étienne (France). His work has established new paradigms in implantable and wearable neurotechnology devices, spanning conducting polymer microelectrodes, transistor-based interfaces, electrically activated seizure-control implants, electrochemically actuated devices and regenerative implants, some of which have progressed from laboratory innovation to clinical translation. His research in bioelectronics has earned him distinctions from the European Academy of Sciences, the Materials Research Society, the New York Academy of Sciences, the US National Science Foundation, and DuPont. He has received an Honorary Doctorate from Linköping University (Sweden) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Materials Research Society, Academia Europaea, and the European Academy of Sciences.

Professor Kathleen Liddell

Faculty of Law

Professor Kathy Liddell is the Director of the Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Sciences (LML), and the Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property and Medical Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on innovations in health, medicine and society, with the aim of understanding and improving the legal frameworks that govern and support these fields. Professor Liddell has been a principal investigator in several large projects and consultancies on intellectual property, information law and emerging health technologies, including in relation to genomics, precision medicine, repurposing pharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence, and antimicrobial resistance. Her expertise also extends to other areas of life sciences including national and international regulation of clinical trials, medical negligence, biomaterials (including human tissue, cells, organs), pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and regenerative medicine. She studied law and natural sciences at the University of Melbourne before undertaking her doctorate in law at the University of Oxford and a Masters of Bioethics at Monash University. In addition to academia, Professor Liddell has worked in private legal practice and in the civil service.

Dr Andrea Luppi

Department of Psychiatry
Dr Andrea Luppi is a Principal Investigator at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, and Fellow of St John’s College Cambridge. His research is funded by the Wellcome Trust and a European Research Council Starter Grant. Prior to his current position he was a Banting and Molson Neuro-Engineering Fellow at the Montreal Neurological Institute, and he obtained his PhD in clinical neuroscience from the University of Cambridge after degrees in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy from Oxford. His work investigates how brain function and consciousness arise from the complex interplay of brain architecture and dynamics. To this end, he combines approaches from information theory, network science and whole-brain computational modelling to investigate pharmacological and pathological perturbations of brain function across a broad array of species.

Ms Lucy Jung

LYEONS Neurotech

With a background in Innovation Design Engineering (MSc/MA) from Imperial College
London and the Royal College of Art, Industrial and Informatic Design (BA) from Korea University, and a Certificate of Management Excellence from Harvard Business School, Lucy specialises in user-centred innovation using IDEO methodologies. She is a Visiting Lecturer at Imperial College London and a Supervisor and Mentor at Cambridge Judge Business School, where she supports the translation of scientific and engineering innovations into solutions with real-life impact. Lucy was also a Cambridge NeuroWorks Fellow and a Visiting Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. She has founded and led companies dedicated to developing medical devices that seamlessly integrate engineering, clinical research, and user-centred design. Notably, her experience includes creating a neuromodulation device for people with Parkinson’s, where she worked closely with the user community to prioritise usability throughout the development process, and more recently at LYEONS, developing multisensory systems designed to support nervous system regulation in everyday life.