Florian Solzbacher

Professor Florian Solzbacher is helping turn science fiction into reality through his research and related startup companies.

Solzbacher is pushing the boundaries of electrical devices that can be implanted into the brain and used as an interface between neurons and computers.

Solzbacher’s research builds on Utah Electrode Array (“Utah Array”) technologies, which were invented by another University of Utah professor, Richard Normann, and are recognized as the leading approach for selective communication with hundreds of neurons in the central and peripheral nervous systems. The Utah Array is a computer chip that is implanted in, and takes signals from the brain. It transmits them in a way a computer can understand – in short, a neural interface. Solzbacher has improved how the chip works and pioneered its applications.

“We are making things work,” says Solzbacher. “People have had the idea to invent better technologies like ours for years, but we are the first to make them work and get them into patients. There are over 10,000 labs worldwide that can make things with our technologies, and they, in turn, pull us in and involve us in theirs.”

Read more at the U News Center