Jacques Carolan
@JacquesCarolan
Programme Director at @ARIA_research || Applied Physicist & Neuroscientist || Hon. Assoc. Prof. at @UCL || Prev: @NeuralCompLab || @MIT || Bristol || He/Him.
🚨I’m super excited to announce the teams we’re funding as part of our Precision Neurotechnologies programme.🚨 They’ll work on the next-gen tech that’ll allow us to understand + treat a wider range of brain disorders than ever before. Read more below (1/3)
We’re excited to announce the 18 teams we’re funding in Precision Neurotechnologies 🧠 They’ll work to unlock new ways to interface with the brain at the neural circuit level, with unprecedented precision. (1/3)
Published today! This is the space in which I'm exploring atmospherically powered, long-endurance flight. This Opportunity Space already spans 11 project seeds and a £81 million programme. We've now updated & expanded - follow for future funding opportunities!
We’ve expanded Scoping Our Planet to tackle prediction uncertainties in Earth systems and drive planetary resilience 🌍 Now, we need input from experts in fields like aerospace, robotics, electrical engineering, and more. Read the doc + share feedback: link.aria.org.uk/sop-x
Ages of human history are often defined by the materials we use. But in our latest opportunity space, PD Ivan Jayapurna is asking: what if the next age could instead be defined by our ability to assemble molecules? Dive in + share feedback: link.aria.org.uk/MA-X
⏰ Final call for the Big if True Science Accelerator - a 15-week program with @ARIA_research to design £50-100M scale research programs. Apply now: bit.ly/3ZAm4Ww
💭 What would you do if you had £50-100M to advance our civilisation's technological and scientific capabilities, without having to think about social returns for investors or academic citations? Applications to the Big if True Science Accelerator (BiTS) now open👇
The first time I understood the impact of neuromodulation was while witnessing a deep brain stimulation surgery during my first year of medical school. What stuck with me--more than anything else--was the way the patient's face lit up when her symptoms disappeared. Surgical…
Half the world will experience a brain disorder in their lifetime. At @nudge, we're building brain interfaces that are safe, precise, and non-invasive to solve that problem. We've raised a $100M Series A led by @ThriveCapital and Greenoaks to go faster. We're hiring. Join us.
Excited to announce our $100M Series A led by @ThriveCapital and @Greenoaks. If you’re an exceptional (neuro)scientist and are interested in joining please reach out to me directly. We’re expanding the research team across preclinical and human studies and it’s an amazing…
Half the world will experience a brain disorder in their lifetime. At @nudge, we're building brain interfaces that are safe, precise, and non-invasive to solve that problem. We've raised a $100M Series A led by @ThriveCapital and Greenoaks to go faster. We're hiring. Join us.
Are we headed toward a technology revolution in therapeutic BCI? I just wrote this piece about why I believe neurotech will become an indispensable tool for addressing the growing mental health crisis and become as common as personal computing. 🧵 open.substack.com/pub/brainjacob… #BCI
this was a blast — great job @DanAkarca @markdhumphries @neuralreckoning (and yes, london was legitimately hot enough that I wore shorts while giving a talk)
We had an incredible gathering at UK Neural Computation 2025 @imperialcollege last week 🇬🇧 Macron missed out... Some of the UK's very best at the frontier of theoretical and empirical neural computation: The timing really couldn't be better for impact at scale bridging theory to…
dream collab
.@PsiQuantum is going for 1 million qubits with its building sized quantum computers. We took a look at the insane science the company has done to make all this happen m.youtube.com/watch?v=ohn6iB…
Trust ‘building blocks’, like encryption, have enabled today's digital industries. In our latest opportunity space, PD @ObadiaAlex asks: could nature-inspired trust infrastructure unlock cyber-physical markets in a secure way? Dive in + share feedback: link.aria.org.uk/TEE-X
super exciting! tonnes of incredible work in the cell therapy space at the moment — this is the next quantum leap!
NEW: No technology currently exists to repair damaged brain tissue and fully restore lost function. FRONT aims to enable millions with what is considered permanent brain damage to regain lost functions, including motor control, vision, and speech. arpa-h.gov/news-and-event…
going from physics into experimental neuroscience was eye opening… Q. why didn’t my experiment work? A. *because of biology*
We desperately need to take all the people in SF who talk about accelerating biology but have only ever done math or CS and have them do a six month rotation in a wet lab.
I'd argue there is no job in the world with greater potential for outsized impact. Please share with the most incredible leaders you know.
Big news: we’re kicking off the search for ARIA’s next CEO. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead one of the most ambitious orgs in science and tech. 1/8
Is 10 bits/s our speed limit? "It appears likely that most of the neurons in the CNS contribute to sensorimotor processing for feedback control." Bingo. If you take a more encompassing view of 'information' to include sensorimotor, the 'paradox' goes away
Is it true you use only 10 bits / s of your brain? @andpru and I provide a motor systems perspective on a proposed speed limit for human information processing. Out today in @NatureNeuro: nature.com/articles/s4159…
Big post today: a two-hour interview with @ilangur on the metascience experiment that is @ARIA_research Ilan was fantastically open. I had a blast. I can only hope he had half as much fun. Huge thanks to @AsimovPress for setting this up!
welcome ant! super excited to have you join us 🚀
We’re excited to welcome Ant Rowstron as ARIA’s first Chief Technology Officer. Ant will be a driving force for attracting bold, new technical ideas to ARIA. He'll help refine our strategy, champion our programmes, and consolidate ARIA as a place for scientific talent to thrive.
our newest opp space on ‘innate immunity’ just dropped!! 🎤 so cool to see all the awesome bio spaces our incredible new pd’s are building. reach out to @bscwang if working on innate immunity
The innate immune system is our first line of defence, but its potential remains untapped. In our latest opportunity space, PD @bscwang is asking: what if we could shape innate immunity with precision + accuracy? Read the doc and share your feedback: link.aria.org.uk/sii-x
🎉🌱So thrilled to announce nine teams we’re backing in our Synthetic Plants programme at @ARIA_research. I can't wait to work with this exciting group as we lay the foundations for breakthroughs in synthetic biology, with potentially transformative benefits for the UK + world 🌍
The nine teams we’re funding in Synthetic Plants are paving the way for more productive, resilient, and sustainable plants.🌱 Discover how they'll deliver growth in agriculture for the UK + beyond: link.aria.org.uk/sp-c-x
Piano pedals of the brain? New paper in Science this week teaches us how how emotion echoes across species. A groundbreaking paper by Kauvar, Deisseroth and colleagues hit a powerful chord in the world of neuroscience. Spoiler alert: our emotional responses, whether in mice or…
5/ 🧠Precision Neurotech to solve the mysteries of neurological disorders and mental health by interfacing with the brain in new non-invasive ways – with potential global impact of >£1tn. It has already led to the first NHS trial of brain-computer interfaces
From a personal perspective, the inaugural ARIA summit was super special. But hearing all the vignettes of exciting conversations across different fields and spaces… that’s the real magic. These blogs/reactions capture that well
Very special week as we hosted the first-ever ARIA Summit. Here a few fun write ups from members of our community that joined -- all different in tone, but coherent in spirit. Stay tuned: we'll be releasing all the content publicly in the coming weeks! 🚀 /1