Perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) – the main technology used to store data in modern data centers serving the World Wide Web – and multilevel 3D magnetic memory and logic are among the technologies that became possible because of discoveries by this team.
However, the most impactful technology concept pioneered in the Khizroev laboratory is using MagnetoElectric NanoParticles (MENPs) for biomedical applications. Unlike any other nanoparticles and/or bioreagents known to date, MENPs, owing to their magnetoelectric (quantum-mechanical) effect, allow for direct coupling of local electric fields to magnetic fields, thus unlocking the possibility of a two-way, highly targeted, and cell-type specific, wireless control of fundamental biological mechanisms, ideally, at the molecular level in real time. Unlike other alternatives, e.g., optogenetics, the MENP treatment does not require any genetic modification of the tissue, nor does it need any surgical intervention to allow energy penetration through the skull and soft tissue.
Due to the unprecedented technological advantage, MENP based therapy has the potential to find cure for currently untreatable neurodegenerative diseases and cancers. This concept was for the first time described in our peer-reviewed theoretical study to use MENPs for wireless brain stimulation in patients with Parkinson’s disease. The paper, published in 2012, resulted from a research collaboration between Professor Sakhrat Khizroev and Professor Ping Liang at the University of California at Riverside. Since its inception in 2011, this concept has rapidly grown to become an internationally studied, highly promising, research area at the intersection of engineering and medicine.
With the focus to launch gamechangin applications of NanoMagnetoElectronics, in collaboration with our colleagues at the Miller School of Medicine and the College of Arts and Sciences as well as with researchers across the globe, we pursue the following projects:
- Wireless Two-Way Brain-Computer Interfaces (with the UM Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, ETH Zurich, the University of Valencia, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Southern California)
- Highly Targeted Theranostic Treatment of Currently Untreatable Cancers (with the UM NCI Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, Cellular Nanomed and the NCI Moffitt Cancer Center)
- Building Quantum Intelligence (with the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing)
