Emily Mullin

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44 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 13 Jul

Emily Mullin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Science Friday · China's booming biotech, from a brain implant to drug discovery · 13 Jul 2026 podcast

Thanks for having me.

I would say this is a pretty significant milestone, you know, not only for China, but also for the worldwide brain-computer interface field.

It shows that China has caught up with the U.S.

in terms of BCI technology, and it also shows that these devices are commercially viable.

Yeah, so as you said, this device is called the Neo, and it doesn't go into the brain directly.

It actually rests on top of the brain's protective membrane called the dura mater, and it pairs with a soft robotic glove to enable a gripping action for people who have lost the use of their hand.

The system was tested on about three dozen people in trials, and China has now started incorporating it into the country's health systems.

So we could see this rolled out soon to patients.

Yeah, so one of the companies you might have heard of in the U.S.

is Elon Musk's Neuralink.

And Neuralink is developing this coin-sized implant with thin electrode threads that actually reach into the brain tissue.

So that's a little bit different than this device that China has just approved.

Now, there are other companies...

such as Synchron, for instance.

They're based in New York.

They are developing a little stent-like tube that actually fits into a blood vessel and is pushed up through the blood vessels so that it rests actually against the brain.

So there are all sorts of designs that are being developed and being investigated for different uses.

There are several companies in China that are now developing brain-computer interfaces.

So I think we are probably likely to see, over the next couple of years, more approvals like this.

The government officially designated brain-computer interfaces as a

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