NEU-CHiP Home

Using human cells to create

Biological Artificial Intelligence

NEU-CHiP is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

The first event on “Cortical neurons for biological computing” was hosted by NEU-ChiP as a satellite event at FENS 2024. A range of speakers from across the globe attended this landmark event, driving discussion within this inter- and multi-disciplinary forum. For more information, slide sets and blog-posts from speakers please find more info here.

The final NEUChip Project Meeting was held at Erasmus Darwin House, Lichfield, UK. This was an update event, with lots of discussion and plans for innovation resulting from the cutting-edge research. More info on our blog.

NEU-CHiP: Taking complex biological computing into reality.

This is a grant funded by the EU.

The NEU-CHiP project is an international collaboration of leaders across a wide range of disciplines, with a shared focus to engineer and apply human neural cell circuits as biological computers.

This research draws together a network of research working at the cutting edge of scientific discovery to demonstrate how human brain stem cells can be engineered into specifically designed complex circuits enabling them to function as an artificial biological computer. The brain-on-a-chip device will be stimulated and interrogated, being taught to solve problems from data, laying the foundations for a “paradigm shift” in machine learning technology.

Use of AI is becoming ever more prevalent in areas as diverse as healthcare, finance, autonomous vehicles and speech recognition, right through to recommending films through on-demand services like Netflix. The ‘big four’ tech companies – Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook – and many others are investing heavily in machine learning to tailor their products and better understand their customers.

Latest News
February 13, 2025The future of Alzheimer’s research took center stage at this year’s Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK) Annual Conference, where Dr Eric Hill delivered a compelling talk to an audience of 300 registrants. This prestigious event, the leading national conference for dementia research in the UK, brought together scientists, clinicians, and experts to discuss groundbreaking advancements in … Continue reading “NEU-ChiP Outreach for Brain Research” [...]
February 4, 2025Our final NEUChip project meeting brought together partners from across Europe and beyond, including teams from Barcelona, Israel, Paris, Aston, Loughborough, and 3Brain, to share progress and discuss key results. Hosted in the historic Erasmus Darwin House on Beacon Street, just a stone’s throw from Lichfield Cathedral, the meeting provided an inspiring setting to exchange … Continue reading “NEUChip Project Meeting at Erasmus Darwin House, Lichfield, UK” [...]
November 5, 2024Cargèse, Corsica October 21-25, 2024 The Barcelona and CNRS teams recently met in Cargèse within the context of the “Maturation and Plasticity” workshop, and with the aim to advance discussions of ongoing works and progress in WP3 & WP4. The workshop, coorganized by Remi Monasson (CNRS), was also a unique opportunity to advertise the experimental … Continue reading “Maturation and plasticity in biological and artificial neural networks” [...]
August 7, 2024Talk given by Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky Today’s AI applications demand tremendous computing power. However, existing hardware for AI is hitting a bottleneck in terms of speed and power. This is particularly because of the data movement required due to the separation of computing and memory in the von Neumann architecture and the large energy consumption, … Continue reading “FENS Blog: On-Device Machine Learning with Memristors in the Neuromorphic Era” [...]
August 6, 2024Jordi Soriano from University of Barcelona is participating in the school ENREDANDO 2024, a school on complex networks and nonlinear dynamics that is taking place at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, in Bogotá. The school covers aspects from epidemics to neuroscience and artificial intelligence. and it is thought to motivate young students to engage themselves in these … Continue reading “International dissemination of Neu-ChiP” [...]
August 5, 2024We have a Research Associate vacancy in bio-engineering at Loughborough University, UK – further details for this can be found here. [...]
July 23, 2024field of biological machine learning, promising attempts have been made to use cortical neurons for machine learning tasks. However, these efforts often lack a strong theoretical foundation from a mathematical perspective. Prof Saad’s talk introduced three mathematical tools to address this gap: Overall, Prof Saad highlighted the potential of mathematical tools to enhance our understanding … Continue reading “HO FAI (JACKY) PO – FENS Blog” [...]
June 14, 2024
October 11, 2023Presenting the consorta at the 2023 International Symposium on Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications (NOLTA) a number of the group were able to present over the week event, bring in lots of discussion and interest from others, as well as push forward ideas amongst NeU-ChiP partners in various places, even on Mount Etna. Papers and … Continue reading “NEU-ChiP visits Sicily” [...]
September 6, 2023I had an amazing time at SigmaPhi 2023 in Crete! As part of the NEU-CHiP consortium, I presented our work on “Inferring Effective Structure from Cortical Neural Network Activities” at this prominent conference in statistical physics. Such a fantastic platform for knowledge exchange and networking! #SigmaPhi2023 #NEUCHiP #NeuralNetworks #ConferenceExperience [...]
July 23, 2023On world brain day Prof Parri gave a brief overview of the cutting edge work of his lab group and the EU funded NEU-ChiP project [...]
April 2, 2023The brain is one of the most complex organs in the human body, responsible for everything from our thoughts and emotions to our ability to move and sense the world around us. It is a fascinating and mysterious structure, and scientists have been studying it for centuries in an attempt to understand how it functions. … Continue reading “Blog – Mathematical Modelling the Brain” [...]
March 26, 2023Creating Living Circuits with Microfabrication Microfabrication tools have revolutionized the way we engineer biological systems, allowing us to manipulate living cells at a level of precision that was once impossible. Among the many applications of microfabrication in the field of biology is the creation of living circuits from neurons in vitro. This technique has the … Continue reading “Blog – Living cell circuits” [...]
December 1, 2022I’m an Undergraduate Master of Chemistry student at the University of Loughborough in my final year, due to graduate in the summer of 2023. During my time at university, I have performed investigations into the impact of differing concentrations and combinations of the chemotherapy drugs Paclitaxel and Fluorouracil on the neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cell line, the … Continue reading “Blog – Undergraduate MChem Student at Loughborough University, UK” [...]
November 2, 2022Jan has been recruited onto the website development team to help with developing the site and keeping us updated. [...]
November 2, 2022Our partners in Technion have recently published a new article covering their work on training memristive devices. Please see more on our publication page. [...]
October 20, 2022Dr Eric Hill and colleagues from Aston enjoyed an “exciting new immersive exhibition” to support the open delivery and accessibility of science to the community through large scale kinetic installations with glass, light and body recognition software. This is an accumulation of over 7 years work, with an amazing online gallery here. [...]
September 15, 2022David Jenkins yet again shows off the multi-couloured delights of his neurons in a linked video here. Two of his fellow researchers are partially colour blind, so to help with their visualisation of the cell types and domains he has selected colours that they can discriminate. See more of the amazing images in the NEU-CHiP … Continue reading “Visual Display of Neurons” [...]
July 20, 2022Loughborough School of Science hosted 3 excellent students and 2 amazing teachers from St. John’s College Cardiff over a week in the summer. Everyone had hands on experience of multiple lab practicals ranging from culturing living cells to making micro-devices in a clean room. The students fed back from their experience that they learned a … Continue reading “Summer Placement in Lboro NEU-ChiP Labs” [...]
June 14, 2022Last week I had my first poster presentation at the @EMBO workshop “Neural stem cells: From basic understanding to translational applications” in Greece. It has been a pleasure to attend such interesting talks as well as meet amazing people. @NSC_BrainDamage @NeuChiP – Anna-Christina Häb from the University of Barcelona [...]
June 9, 2022Held at the University of Barcelona, almost all partners were able to make a physical meeting (save 2 who sadly had covid and couldn’t fly, so dialed in virtually). This was a really exciting meeting, sharing updates, feeding in for further progression of the project and enjoying each other’s company in the very scenic environment. … Continue reading “First NEU-CHiP Consortia Meeting” [...]
June 1, 2022After many months of planning and fine tuning the proposal, bringing together an interdisciplinary team of experts across the EU, and now many months of online meetings to drive our research, we are all looking forward to being part of the first physical meeting of the consortium. This will be hosted in the Faculty of … Continue reading “First Consortium Meeting” [...]
May 31, 2022Dr Daniel Merryweather from the Loughborough partners of NEUCHiP gave a talk about his work related to the development and fabrication of in vitro neural models at the Future Investigators of Regenerative Medicine (FIRM) conference #FIRM2022. The conference was held in the delightful setting of Middleton Lodge, North Yorkshire in the UK, with an great … Continue reading “Dan Merryweather talks at FIRM2022” [...]
May 1, 2022As part of this informal science chat Eric covers his research interests in stem cell science towards treatments and possible cures for dementia. As part of this he couldn’t resit bringing in some of the really futuristic tools and tech that are underpinning NEU-ChiP. [...]
March 24, 2022
March 17, 2022Although green might be the colour of choice today with many celebrating St Patrick’s day in the UK and Ireland, the Tornero’s lab in Barcelona are showing off their imaging of neuronal cultures in a rather striking shade of red. [...]
June 9, 2021Researchers of the NEU-CHiP project have contributed to a roadmap of neurotechnology in the UK, creating a new strategy for a bright future ahead. You can read this report here. [...]
June 1, 2021Drs Eric Hill (Aston) and Paul Roach (Loughborough) were invited for interview with Dr Sam Moxon (Manchester) to talk about NEU-CHiP and their general interest in brain research. The interview can be found at the following links: 溺Online https://t.co/ou3R7nsWJz易Spotify https://t.co/YLP7OIM4dZ️Apple https://t.co/n9Q853xaJ8 https://t.co/KRhVpoPFBM [...]
May 1, 2021PhD position in neuroengineering and machine learning in biological neuronal networks as part of the NEU-CHiP EU-funded project. [...]
April 12, 2021Drs Parri and Hill appeared on BBC Midlands Today to discuss the NEU-CHiP project. The reporters visited the Aston centre, taking a look at the laboratory facilities and to get a better understanding of what the project is going to offer. This was a great opportunity for us to inform a generalist audience, and we … Continue reading “BBC Midlands Today” [...]