Blog

AZoLifeSciences' interview with our Founder and CTO, Brian Jamieson, highlights his journey to found Diagnostic Biochips and the goals for the company's future. Brian discusses the fast-growing world of neural electrophysiology and how DBC paves our way in the market for researchers studying brain diseases and disorders. He notes that DBC sets itself apart by creating tools like the Deep Array to access deeper structures in the brains of larger animals, and eventually, humans. Currently, there is an extremely limited number of research tools that allow scientists to observe the deep brain at...

In the manufacturing lab at Diagnostic Biochips, Ashley Recklein adds her touch to perfect the assembly of probes before they ship to our customers. With a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland and previous work at a Med-Tech start-up developing point-of-care diagnostics devices, Ashley's expertise ensures DBC provides the best quality to our users. She also works to improve the processes in place for more efficient probe packaging and is occasionally involved in research and development projects. 

Forbes recently sat down with Greg Alden, CEO and President of Diagnostic Biochips, to discuss his career, how he brings his unique perspective as a Parkinson’s patient to DBC’s work, and the latest on the treatment horizon for neurodegenerative diseases. 

A recent blog post by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spotlights the video that received first place in the 2023 BRAIN Initiative Contest. The winning entry, titled "Simian Symphony," takes us into the fascinating realm of neuroscience, showcasing the innovative use of DBC's Deep Array technology by neuroscientist Saman Abbaspoor in the lab of Kari Hoffman at Vanderbilt University, Nashville.

If you have ever recorded using one of our probes or arrays, Lee is the one to thank for that product's assembly. As our Senior Engineer, Lee has dedicated over 10 years of his career to the success of DBC by being one of the original employees and kick-starting all engineering processes. Lee remembers the first years at DBC being filled with all kinds of successes and failures as he worked to perfect the products. He notes there were many times he almost gave up making new devices, but with continuous persistence and determination his efforts started working in his favor and he felt proud to...

We are pleased to introduce Andrew Dirks, BS who joined the Diagnostic Biochips team as our Product Manager in November 2022.He utilizes his degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Delaware and years of experience leading projects and programs to aid in developing the products and resources at DBC. Before his time at DBC, Andrew juggled being a D1 Lacrosse athlete, filing patents for a Monocentric Prosthetic Knee with Adjustable Stance Flexion, and founding a prosthetic technology company where he raised over $25,000 in funding from grants.Andrew plays an essential role here...

Diagnostic Biochips is pleased to announce that the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC) has recognized “Deep Array” as their Prototype of the Year, among the work of all funded entities.

Deep Array is DBC’s high density, multichannel electrode system for interfacing with deep brain structures in non-human primates (NHPs) and humans (research use only). Specifically, this project involved the prototyping and demonstration of key elements of a visual prosthesis appropriate for targeting thalamic structures, with the eventual goal of restoring sight to the blind.

Kari Hoffman is the Principal Investigator in the Perception Plasticity & Learning Lab at Vanderbilt University, and studies the neural mechanisms underlying perception and memory formation.  As a pioneer in freely-moving recordings, she was an early adopter of the DBC Deep Array due to its ability to record from deep structures in the NHP brain, while providing dense recording sites and enabling single neuron resolution across hippocampal layers.

Recently, Kari and her student Saman Abbaspoor collaborated with Tyler Sloan at Quorumetrix Studios to create a visual and auditory representation...

If you have ever had the pleasure of getting great data from a DBC probe or array, it is likely that Nick Watkins had a hand in it.  For the last four years, Nick has served as our Director of Operations here at DBC.   He started working for our CTO and Founder, Brian Jamieson, from a random assignment to shadow a company at work for a day while still in high school.  Brian tells the story of how he assigned Nick a project to research and present on by the end of the day.  While his friends were enjoying a relaxing day off school, Nick was researching.  Brian remembers that Nick nailed it.   

Nick...

In a recent webinar, Dr. Michael Long from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Dr. Kari Hoffman from Vanderbilt University presented their work investigating the neural mechanisms of learning, memory, and behavior using high-density silicon probes from Diagnostic Biochips in small and large animals.

Watch the full webinar here:

We'd like to introduce Rob Simon, our Manager of Technical Sales here at DBC.

Rob received his MS from Penn State University where he studied EEG patterns in humans who had previously experienced brain trauma. He brings more than 20 years of neuroscience experience, including the cognitive and clinical neurophysiology fields. Prior to joining the DBC team, and during his time with the Neuroscan division of Compumedics USA, Rob helped set up numerous labs with EEG and ERP systems and provided guidance in the usage of source analysis in the clinical domain. While at Neuralynx, he also aided...

Felix W. Moll and colleagues from Michael Long’s group at NYU recently published an outstanding paper in Nature titled “Thalamus drives vocal onsets in the zebra finch courtship song” featuring Diagnostic Biochips high-density silicon probes.

A new preprint has recently been published in BioRxiv using DBC's high-density silicon probes. The study is entitled "Neural dynamics in the rodent motor cortex enables flexible control of vocal timing" by Arkarup Banerjee, Feng Chen, Shaul Druckmann and Michael A. Long.

György Buzsáki has been named among 2022’s most cited researchers worldwide, making him one of twenty-three NYU professors named and ranking in the top 1% of citations in their field over the past decade. Dr. Buzsáki is one of fourteen faculty members from the Grossman School of Medicine included in the list, making it the NYU school with the most nominations. Congrats, Dr. Buzsáki!

Click here to learn more about the Buzsáki lab's cognitive neuroscience research.

From November 12-16 the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting was held in San Diego, marking the event's first return to in-person sessions since 2019.  The Diagnostic Biochips team was there, and had the opportunity to share information on our new subscription plan - learn more about how you can save on probes and get free access to the new DBC Cloud platform here! We also shared details on our full product line and had a chance to hear about the incredible work being done with our probes and by the greater neuroscience research community in general. Thank you to everyone for dropping by...

Recognized as a MEMS pioneer and one of the world’s preeminent experts in microsensor technology, Professor Ken Wise is credited with changing the path of brain research with the development of the revolutionary Michigan Probe. Tune into the newest episode of the Probing Questions Podcast to listen to the full conversation where Dr. Wise highlights the breakthroughs of his research and his vision for the future of the field.

It’s Career Day at DBC and we want to know what motivates YOU! Check out this month’s episode of Probing Questions where we talk with Kari Hoffman and Adrien Peyrache about what drives the passion for their research. How did you get your start in neuroscience?

What is scaling? What does it mean to you? The second episode of Probing Questions explores what it means to Eran Stark, Kari Hoffman, and Adrien Peyrache, and how DBC is catalyzing scaling in neuroscience.

What brain probe are you dreaming about? Listen to Kari Hoffman, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, Adrien Peyrache, Ph.D., McGill University, and Eran Stark, MD, Ph.D., Tel Aviv University throw around some ideas about what’s on their ePhys wishlists and where they would look if they had the right kinds of tools.

In honor of International Podcast Day, Diagnostic Biochips is launching the Probing Questions Podcast! Produced in tandem with the video series, PQP let’s you stay up-to-date on DBC’s exclusive interviews with systems-level electrophysiology experts. Our first episode on ePhys Wishlists is out now! Let us know what you think by tagging us on Twitter at @DiagBiochips.

Brian Jamieson asks Kari Hoffman, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, Adrien Peyrache, Ph.D., McGill University, and Eran Stark, MD, Ph.D., Tel Aviv University what’s on their ePhys wishlists and where they would look if they had the right kinds of tools.

Diagnostic Biochips founder and CTO Brian Jamieson talks with experts from the neuroscience community in the new series, Probing Questions. Tune in for our conversations about their work and the future of neurotechnology.

Multi-channel extracellular neuronal recording provides a window into the synaptic inputs and action potential outputs of multi-neuronal (N= 10’s, 100’s and recently 1000’s of neurons) circuits in a variety of cortical and deep brain structures. These measurements can be carried out on a chronic basis in awake and behaving rodents and primates. The use of micron-scale, lithographically-defined semiconductor electrode “probes” (smaller than a human hair) allows a large number of precisely-controlled electrodes to target neurons throughout an entire region of tissue with a minimum of tissue...

An introduction to neural probes for the non-expert…

Looking through a microscope at a network of neurons in the brain (as in the fluorescent microphotograph at left), it’s striking how much of the volume is taken up by axons and dendrites, the input and output projections to the cell bodies that function essentially like electrical wiring. This wiring is heavily cross-connected, with multiple axons terminating on each single downstream cell body, and each cell body sending projections to many other neurons. 

In many fields there is an inherent trade-off between the benefits of product uniformity and the appeal of customization.

Product uniformity fosters reproducibility, reliability, and lower cost, whereas customization gives users access to unique features ideally suited to the specific task at hand. Henry Ford’s comment that a customer can have “any color so long as it is black” may seem tone deaf to modern ears, yet Ford’s approach to standardizing and scaling automobile manufacturing led to the widespread adoption of the car.

Just over a year ago, the DBC team set out to better understand the neural probe market.  We spoke to as many neuroscience researchers as we could– from current probe users to those who had never heard of them– to see how we could build a better probe.  The things that we heard over and over were that users want:

Two Diagnostic Biochips team members, Brian G. Jamieson PhD and Karen Scida PhD, recently had a review paper published in Translational Research: The Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine, along with UCSB’s Kevin W. Plaxco PhD.

Patent Issued for ‘In Vivo Biosensor’

DBC Featured in Journal of Materials Chemistry

Patent for Integrated Optical Neural Probes