In June, the brain-on-a-chip team led by Patrik Verstreken, Dries Braeken, and Birgitt Schuele organized a second "Hands-On CMOS-MEA Training Workshop" at VIB-KU Leuven. They welcomed 12 trainees from the CZI Neurodegeneration Challenge Network and partner labs across Europe, who came together to learn about the technology and identify potential new applications.

The workshop was fully supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and included lectures on the technical specifications of the CMOS-MEA chip, hands-on interactive sessions in the lab, round-table discussions and brainstorms about potential applications, and a visit to imec - where the chips are manufactured, developed and tested.

Carles Calatayud, postdoc in the Verstreken lab: "The attendees showed a keen interest in adopting the technology in their labs and research institutes to study a diverse array of biological questions and diseases. Events like this workshop help us build a community of brain-on-a-chip users, which we believe is the key to push the development of this promising technology and to foster new research collaborations."