Brains in Dishes: Biocomputing
(Early Work-in-Progress)
Project Date: September 2025 - Present
Background/Motivation
I wanted to see if I could use neurons as a computing platform. I honestly did not expect this to work, but here we are. It actually worked so well that I started a company, Chimerion L.L.C. to do biocomputing as a business.
Procedure
First, I needed to make a sterile working area. What better place than my basement? I performed the following to prepare my area:
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Initial mold test
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Cleared the area of all equipment.
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Stripped all paint from the floor and concrete walls
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Resealed all windows and doors
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Ran two dehumidifiers on continuous cycle for two weeks to remove most of the moisture present
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Repainted the floors and walls in waterproof latex paint. Double coat.
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Replaced all equipment
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Final mold test
Then, I searched on eBay for broken/used lab equipment. I found a fantastic deal for a broken CO2 incubator for $200 and a laminar flow hood for $300. I drove to pick both items up the same day (this was the day I actually decided to reject my NSF fellowship offer and not do a PhD). I repaired both instruments (incubator had a malfunctioning blower fan and laminar flow hood had a faulty UV light ON switch) and purchased CO2 tanks along with a secondary CO2 sensor (I don't trust the thermal conductivity sensor in the incubator).
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How do I get signals in and out of neurons once I culture them? That would be through a bi-directional stimulator. I just needed 16 channels for now, but I could not get a quote for such a system for under 50k! Absurd! So, like any disgruntled engineer, I built one myself for under $500. I programmed all firmware for closed-loop stimulation in C (of course) along with a configuration GUI in C++ and a simulation environment in Unity (C#) and a lightweight version in Python.
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​Unfortunately, I need to keep my culture system proprietary, as it is critical to the extreme cost reduction and performance increases (relative to the academic standard in neuroscience) that I have found. Therefore I will not be sharing any of those details on this site. I have censored all images accordingly.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ I have done several closed-loop stimulation experiments on my brains in simulated environments. Very promising results that I unfortunately cannot share here. I am still actively working on this so there is a lot of information missing from this page. You can at least enjoy photos of my brains in dishes!
