Newcastle University

Introduction

I am a reader in neuroprosthesis. I lead a strongly interdisciplinary team and my main interest is in optoelectronic/optogenetic visual prosthesis and visual aid systems for the blind. I was previously a senior lecturer at Imperial College, where I also held and RCUK fellowship. Prior to this, I did two post-doc tours of duty at Imperial College (2002-2005), and worked for a year in the software industry (2001-2002). I have a Ph.D. in Bioelectronics from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and an MRes and BSc in Applied Physics from Liverpool University

My research page can be found here:

http://research.ncl.ac.uk/neuroprosthesis/

Qualifications

PhD Bioelectronics - JAIST, Japan
MRes Surface Science - Liverpool University, UK
BSc Applied Phyiscs (1st Class) - Liverpool University, UK

Previous Positions

2009-2010 Senior Lecturer in Neurobionics - Imperial College, London
2005-2009 Lecturer in Neurobionics - Imperial College, London
2002-2005 Post-doc - Imperial College, London
2001-2001 Software Engineer, Network Associates, Amsterdam

Memberships

IEEE, IOP, ARVO, SPIE, BioCAS

Languages

English, Dutch, Japanese

Current Work

Optogenetic Retinal Prosthesis
I'm coordinating a European consortium to develop optoelectronic arrays for optogenetic retinal prosthesis. This research is also backed up by the EPSRC and BBSRC.

Augmented Vision systems
I am developing advanced visual devices for the visually impaired and performing patients trials at the Oxford and Western Eye(London) Hospitals.

My research page can be found here:

http://research.ncl.ac.uk/neuroprosthesis/

Research Staff

Dr Rolando Berlinguer-Palmini
Dr Kamyar Mehran
Dr Arfan Ghani

Postgraduate Supervision

Newcastle PhD supervision
Michael Scott Evans
Musa Al Yaman
Graeme Coapes
Jun Luo
Hubin Zhao
John Barrett

External/visiting PhD students
Na Dong - South East University, China

Alumini (Imperial College)

Imperial College (pre - Sept 2010)
Muthu Murugeson (RA), Nahed Solouma (visiting fellow), Hwa Jeong Kim (visiting fellow), Muhammed Memon (visiting fellow), Brian McgGovern (RA), Nir Grossman(PhD & RA), Tassanai Parritokkoporn (PhD)

Funding

EPSRC - Neurotechnology Sandpit
EPSRC - Knowledge Transfer award
EPSRC - Retinal prosthetics: a novel opto-bionic approach to the restoration of functional vision
BBSRC - Enhancing the photostimulation kinetics of channelrhodopsin-2 encoded neurons
EU FP7 - OptoNeuro
Thierri Latran Foundation - Motor Neurone disease prosthesis
Royal Society - Augmented Vision for the visually impaired
BRC - Electronic Low Vision Aids Using Commercial Mobile Devices

Undergraduate Teaching

MMB8019 - sensory systems and neuroimaging

EEE2014 - Semiconductor Devices and analog Electronics

PHY2017 - Semiconductor Devices

if you have questions regarding my teaching, please contact me through blackboard or email me.

Postgraduate Teaching

I'm looking for talented PhD students as I build my new group in Newcastle University

• Nam S, Kim H, Degenaar P, Ha CS, Kim Y. Extremely slow photocurrent response from hemoprotein films in planar diode geometry. Applied Physics Letters 2012, 101, 223701.
• Parittotokkaporn T, Thomas DGT, Schneider A, Huq E, Davies BL, Degenaar P, Rodriguez-y-Baena F. Microtextured Surfaces for Deep-Brain Stimulation Electrodes: A Biologically Inspired Design to Reduce Lead Migration. World Neurosurgery 2012, 77(3-4), 569-576.
• Al-Atabany W, McGovern B, Mehran K, Berlinguer-Palmini R, Degenaar P. A processing platform for optoelectronic/optogenetic retinal prosthesis. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 2011, 1-10.
• McGovern B, Palmini RB, Grossman N, Drakakis E, Poher V, Neil MAA, Degenaar P. A New Individually Addressable Micro-LED Array for Photogenetic Neural Stimulation. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems 2010, 4(6, part 2), 469-476.
• Grossman N, Nikolic K, Toumazou C, Degenaar P. Modeling Study of the Light Stimulation of a Neuron Cell With Channelrhodopsin-2 Mutants. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 2011, 58(6), 1742-1751.
• Nikolic K, Loizu J, Degenaar P, Toumazou C. A stochastic model of the single photon response in Drosophila photoreceptors. Integrative Biology 2010, 2, 354-370.
• Al-Atabany WI, Memon MA, Downes SM, Degenaar PA. Designing and testing scene enhancement algorithms for patients with retina degenerative disorders. BioMedical Engineering Online 2010, 9, 27.
• Al-Atabany W, Tong T, Degenaar P. Improved content aware scene retargeting for retinitis pigmentosa patients. BioMedical Engineering OnLine 2010, 9, 52.
• Grossman N, Poher V, Grubb MS, Kennedy GT, Nikolic K, McGovern B, Palmini RB, Gong Z, Drakakis EM, Neil MAA, Dawson MD, Burrone J, Degenaar P. Multi-site optical excitation using ChR2 and micro-LED array. Journal of Neural Engineering 2010, 7(1), 016004.
• Huang Y, Drakakis EM, Degenaar P, Toumazou C. A CMOS image sensor with light-controlled oscillating pixels for an investigative optobionic retinal prosthesis system. Microelectronics Journal 2009, 40(8), 1202-1211.
• Degenaar P. Elucidating the nervous system with channelrhodopsins. Cell Science Reviews 2009, 6(1), 1-13.
• Kim H, Degenaar P, Kim Y. Insertion of a cytochrome c protein into a complex lipid monolayer under an electric field. Journal of Physical Chemistry C 2009, 113(32), 14377-14380.
• Degenaar P, Grossman N, Memon MA, Burrone J, Dawson M, Drakakis E, Neil M, Nikolic K. Optobionic vision: a new genetically enhanced light on retinal prosthesis. Journal of Neural Engineering 2009, 6(3), 035007.
• Nikolic K, Grossman N, Grubb MS, Burrone J, Toumazou C, Degenaar P. Photocycles of channelrhodopsin-2. Photochemistry and Photobiology 2009, 85(1), 400-411.
• Chen LC, Degenaar P, Bradley DDC. Polymer transfer printing: application to layer coating, pattern definition, and diode dark current blocking. Advanced Materials 2008, 20(9), 1679-1683.
• Poher V, Grossman N, Kennedy GT, Nikolic K, Zhang HX, Gong Z, Drakakis EM, Gu E, Dawson MD, French PMW, Degenaar P, Neil MAA. Micro-LED arrays: a tool for two-dimensional neuron stimulation. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 2008, 41(9), 094014.
• Banks DJ, Degenaar P, Toumazou C. Low-power pulse-width-modulated neuromorphic spiking circuit allowing signed double byte data transfer along a single channel. Electronics Letters 2007, 43(13), 704-706.
• Nikolic K, Loizu J, Degenaar P, Toumazou C. Noise reduction in analogue computation of Drosophilia photoreceptors. Journal of Computational Electronics 2008, 7(3), 458-461.
• Degenaar P, Constandinou TG, Toumazou C. Adaptive ON-OFF spiking photoreceptor. Electronics Letters 2006, 42(4), 196-198.
• Banks DJ, Degenaar P, Toumazou C. Distributed current-mode image processing filters. Electronics Letters 2005, 41(22), 1201-1202.
• Akagi Y, Hashigasako A, Degenaar P, Iwabuchi S, Hasan Q, Morita Y, Tamiya E. Enzyme-linked sensitive fluorometric imaging of glutamate release from cerebral neurons of chick embryos. Journal of Biochemistry 2003, 134(3), 353-358.
• Griscom L, Degenaar P, Le Pioufle B, Tamiya E, Fujita H. Cell placement and neural guidance using a three-dimensional microfludic array. Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 2001, 40(9A), 5485-5490.
• Degenaar P, Le Pioufle B, Griscom L, Tixier A, Akagi Y, Morita Y, Murakami Y, Yokoyama K, Fujita H, Tamiya E. A method for micrometer resolution patterning of primary culture neurons for SPM analysis. Journal of Biochemistry 2001, 130(3), 367-376.
• Al-Atabany W, Degenaar P. Scene Optimization for Optogenetic Retinal Prosthesis. In: IEEE Conference on Biomedical Circuits and Systems. 2011, San Diego, California, USA: IEEE.
• McGovern B, Drakakis EM, Neil N, O'Brian P, Corbett B, Berlinguer-Palmini R, Degenaar P. Individually addressable optoelectronic arrays for optogenetic neural stimulation. In: IEEE Conference on Biomedical Circuits and Systems. 2011, San Diego, California, USA: IEEE.
• Parittotokkaporn T, Frasson L, Schneider A, Davies BL, Degenaar P, Rodriguez-y-Baena F. Insertion experiments of a biologically inspired microtextured and multi-part probe based on reciprocal motion. In: IEEE International Conference of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC). 2010, Buenos Aires, Argentina: IEEE.
• Grossman N, Nikolic K, Poher V, McGovern B, Drankasis E, Neil M, Toumazou C, Degenaar P. Photostimulator for optogenetic retinal prosthesis. In: 4th International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering (NER '09). 2009, Antalya, Turkey: IEEE.
• Degenaar P, Grossman N, Berlinguer-Palmini R, McGovern B, Pohrer V, Drakakis E, Dawson M, Toumazou C, Burrone J, Nikolic K, Neil M. Optoelectronic microarrays for retinal prosthesis. In: IEEE Conference on Biomedical Circuits and Systems. BioCAS 2009. 2009, Beijing: IEEE Xplore.
• Parittotokkaporn T, Frasson L, Schneider A, Huq SE, Davies BL, Degenaar P, Biesenack J, Rodriguez y Baena FM. Soft tissue traversal with zero net force: Feasibility study of a biologically inspired design based on reciprocal motion. In: 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO). 2009, Bangkok, Thailand: IEEE.
• Huang Y, Drakakis EM, Toumazou C, Degenaar P. A CMOS image sensor with spiking pixels for retinal stimulation. In: IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS). 2008, Seattle, WA: IEEE.
• Atabany W, Degenaar P. A robust edge enhancement approach for low vision patients using scene simplification. In: Cairo International Biomedical Engineering Conference (CIBEC 2008). 2008, Cairo, Egypt: IEEE.
• Frasson L, Parittotokkaporn T, Schneider A, Davies BL, Vincent JFV, Huq SE, Degenaar P, Rodriguez y Baena FM. Biologically inspired microtexturing: Investigation into the surface topography of next-generation neurosurgical probes. In: 30th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS 2008). 2008, Vancouver, Canada: IEEE.
• Atabany W, Degenaar P. Parallelism to reduce power consumption on FPGA spatiotemporal image processing. In: IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS). 2008, Seattle, WA: IEEE.
• Banks D, Degenaar P, Toumazou C. A bio-inspired adaptive retinal processing neuron with multiplexed spiking outputs. In: IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS). 2007, New Orleans, LA: IEEE.
• Nikolic K, Grossman N, Yan H, Drakakis E, Toumazou C, Degenaar P. A non-invasive retinal prosthesis - testing the concept. In: 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS 2008). 2007, Lyon, France: IEEE.
• Constandinou TG, Degenaar P, Toumazou C. An adaptable foveating vision chip. In: IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS 2006). 2006, Kos, Greece: IEEE.
• Huang y, Drakakis EM, Toumazou C, Nikolic K, Degenaar P. An optoelectronic platform for retinal prosthesis. In: IEEE Conference on Biomedical Circuits and Systems. 2006, London, UK: IEEE.
• Nikolic K, Degenaar P, Toumazou C. Modeling and engineering aspects of ChannelRhodopsin2 system for neural photostimulation. In: 28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology (EMBS). 2006, New York, NY: IEEE.
• Gamez MA, Degenaar P. Reducing collision noise in asynchronous vision chips. In: 49th IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS '06). 2006, San Juan, PR: IEEE.
• Constandinou T, Degenaar P, Bradley D, Toumazou C. An on/off spiking photoreceptor for adaptive ultrafast/ultrawide dynamic range vision chips. In: 2004 IEEE International Workshop on Biomedical Circuits and Systems. 2004, Singapore: IEEE.
• Griscom L, Degenaar P, Denoual M, Morin F. Culturing of neurons in microfludic arrays. In: 2nd Annual International IEEE-EMBS Special Topic Conference on Microtechnologies in Medicine and Biology. 2002, Madison, WI: IEEE.
• Al-Atabany W, Memon M, Downes S, Degenaar P. Vision Improvement for Patients with Retinal Degeneration. In: The Seventh IASTED International Conference on Biomedical Engineering (BioMed). 2010, Innsbruck, Austria: IASTED.
• Griscom L, Degenaar P, Le Pioufle B, Tamiya E, Fujita H. Techniques for patterning and guidance of primary culture neurons on micro-electrode arrays. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical 2002, 83(1-3), 15-21.
• Griscom L, Degenaar P, Le Pioufle B, Tamiya E, Fujita H. Soft lithographic techniques for guidance of hippocampal neurons on micro-electrode arrays. In: 11th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors and Actuators. 2001, Munich, Germany: Springer-Verlag.
• Degenaar P, Murakami Y, Yokoyama K, Tamiya E, Le Pioufle B, Fujita Y. Near-field imaging of neurotransmitter release and uptake in patterned neuron networks. In: 2nd Conference on Scanning and Force Microscopies for Biomedical Applications. 2000, San Jose, CA: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).
• Degenaar P, Banks D. Analog Retinomorphic Circuitry to Perform Retinal and Retinal Inspired Processing. In: Bharath, Anil and Petrou, Maria, ed. Next Generation Artificial Vision Systems: Reverse Engineering the Human Visual System. Boston: Artech House, 2008, pp.289-333.
• Degenaar P, Nikolic K, Banks D, Chen L. Organic semiconductor photoreceptors to mimic human rods and cones. In: Bharath, Anil and Petrou, Maria, ed. Next Generation Artificial Vision Systems: Reverse Engineering the Human Visual System. Boston: Artech House, 2008.
• Degenaar P, Tamiya E. Near-field optics in biology. In: Fujita, Hiroyuki, ed. Micromachines as Tools for Nanotechnology. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2003, pp.83-120.
• Yanagida T, Tamiya E, Muramatsu H, Degenaar P, Ishii Y, Sako Y, Saito K, Ohta-Iino S, Ogawa S, Marriott G, Kusumi A, Tatsumi H. Near-field microscopy for biomolecular systems. In: Kawata, S; Ohtsu, M; Irie, M, ed. Nano-Optics. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2002, pp.191-236.