Cambridge joins forces with ARIA to fast-track radical new technologies to revolutionise brain health
A major consortium from across the Cambridge life sciences, technology and business worlds has announced a multi-million-pound, three-year collaboration with the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), the UK Government’s new research funding agency. As one of ARIA’s new Activation Partners in the agency’s Scalable Neural Interfaces opportunity space, this collaboration aims to rocket-boost progress on a new generation of neuro-technologies designed to treat conditions such as depression, dementia, chronic pain, epilepsy and injuries to the nervous system.
Cambridge’s partnership with ARIA will create a home for original thinkers who are struggling to find the funding, space and mentoring needed to stress-test their radical ideas. It will scour the UK for innovators from any background with a highly ambitious concept for a technology that could transform brain health. The very best will be offered the resources to test and then scale up their idea at pace, so it can be brought to patients across the world quickly and affordably.
Our vision is to unlock more treatments with fewer side-effects, creating a world where personalised brain health care is available to everyone.
Neurological and mental health disorders will affect four in every five people in their lifetimes, and present a greater overall health burden than cancer and cardiovascular disease combined. For example, twenty-eight million people in the UK are living with chronic pain and one point three million people with traumatic brain injury.
Neuro-technology – where technology is used to interact with the nervous system - has the potential to deliver revolutionary new treatments for these disorders, in much the same way that heart pacemakers, cochlear implants and spinal implants have transformed medicine in recent decades. These technologies also have the potential to treat autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and type-1 diabetes.
Original thinking is in the DNA of both ARIA and Cambridge, so this partnership will consider supporting any precise neuro-technology with the potential to solve a global health problem. It could be in the form of electronic brain implants that reset abnormal brain activity or help deliver targeted drugs more effectively, brain-computer interfaces that control prosthetic limbs, new gene therapies, or cutting-edge technologies that train the patient’s own cells to fight disease.
ARIA’s Scalable Neural Interfaces opportunity space is exploring ways to make the technology more precise, less invasive, and applicable to a broader range of diseases.
The science of building technology small enough, precise enough and cheap enough to make a global impact requires an environment where the very best minds from across the UK can collaborate, dream up ambitious ideas and test them without fear of failure. The new partnership extends beyond academia, it is open to innovators from all backgrounds and locations. We want everyone to be able to access our expertise and resources so that they can turn their concepts into mass produced, affordable and clinic-ready technologies to benefit millions of people suffering around the world.
The three-year partnership is made up of two streams:
The Fellowship Stream (up to 18 fellowships)
Blue Sky Fellows – we will bring together innovators from around the UK with exciting ideas in neuro-technology, and provide the plan and personal skills to translate them. These Blue Sky Fellows will receive funding to rapidly test their idea in Cambridge, along with mentorship from our best medical, scientific and business experts. We will be looking for a very specific type of person to be a Blue Sky Fellow. They must be the kind of character who thinks at the very edge of the possible, who doesn’t fear failure, and whose ideas have the potential to change millions of lives, yet would struggle to find funding from existing sources. Not so much people who think outside the box, more people who don’t see a box at all.
Activator Fellows – this is for those innovators across the UK who have reached proof of concept validation for their neuro-technology and need support to turn it into a business. They will be offered training in entrepreneurial skills including grant writing, IP management and clinical validation, so that their innovation can be made ready for the next stage in translation.
The Ecosystem Stream
The Ecosystem Stream is about creating a vibrant, UK-wide neurotechnology community where leaders from business, science, engineering, academia and the NHS can meet, spark ideas and form collaborations. This will involve quarterly events in Cambridge, road trip events across the UK and access to the thriving online Cambridge community, Connect: Health Tech. Innovators will get the opportunity to hyper focus on hypothesis generation, ideation, and experimental pathway design as part of structured “What If” programme. They can also test their ‘Blue Sky’ proof-of-concept ideas through dedicated funding for access to leading facilities and mentorship.
"Physical and mental illnesses and diseases that affect the brain such as dementia are some of the biggest challenges we face both as individuals and as a society. This funding will bring together different experts doing radical things at the very limits of science and developing new technology to improve healthcare. We hope this new partnership with the NHS will lead to better care and treatment for people experiencing health conditions."
Dr Ben Underwood, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
The Cambridge partners are as follows:
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
The Milner Therapeutics Institute
Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP)
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
About ARIA
ARIA is an R&D funding agency created to unlock technological breakthroughs that benefit everyone. Created by an Act of Parliament, and sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology, it funds teams of scientists and engineers to pursue research at the edge of what is scientifically and technologically possible.