Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup founded by Elon Musk (read more about this story here), has filed a request for permission to build a biological testing laboratory at a facility in San Francisco. The documentation, compiled back in 2017, was recently obtained by Gizmodo, which gained access to Neuralink's public records. An excerpt from a letter that Neuralink spokesperson Jared Birchell submitted in February 2017 to the city's planning department reveals something about the company's plans.
“The holding intends to use the second floor as an interdisciplinary workshop for electrical, chemical, mechanical and engineering work and computer development, a small mechanical workshop for the modification of small biomechanical devices, 3D printing and CNC milling will be added to it. The mechanical workshop is an auxiliary department of the workshop.
The holding intends to use the third floor for a biological research laboratory to test and develop neurobiological interfaces. Support rooms will require a clean room for device integration, a small operating room for in vivo testing, and a small room for rodents. […] Clean room, operating room and rodent housing are included in laboratory use."
Ultimately, Neuralink's biological research applications filed indicate that the company is making progress on its projects. Alik Vij, a psychiatrist engineer at Massachusetts General Hospital, says testing is a valuable and integral part of the research development process, especially for companies with ambitious goals like Neuralink.
“When you think about the body, we are made mostly of salt water. You can see what she does with the car in a year or two. Now imagine what she would do to a high-precision medical device, especially electrical signals. The point of animal testing is to show that the risk of this happening is incredibly low,”says Vige.
The specifics of Neuralink projects are still a mystery. It is known, however, that the startup is developing a "neural lace" that will strengthen the connection between the human brain and computers.
Ilya Khel