The brain - understanding the brain - is the real problem, the issue for our century. So, 15 years ago, faced with this challenge, I and the people we have here in the optics, photonics and laser team, we launched a program, and the goal was to further the tools of tomorrow, all sorts of light-based tools, to try to penetrate the mysteries of the brain.

The work that we have done in collaboration with the neuroscience team is, essentially, aimed to develop probes that can capture not only electrical signals, but also optical signals that come from neurons. So, what’s special about what we have done, is that we have successfully developed probes that operate at the cellular level to capture both the electrical signal and the optical signal. Special optical fibres are then produced which have applications in various fields, including the biomedical field.

If we want to move forward here, we have to work together - biologists, people from the biomedical sector, physicists and mathematicians. And this capacity to really mesh the different disciplines, I think that it’s one of the avenues that will be the most fruitful for - for the future of understanding the brain.

Ultimately, if we can better understand how the brain works at a cellular level - or even at the molecular level - we believe that, eventually, we will be able to treat a number of brain diseases, particularly degenerative diseases.

So, by putting people together, some of them will sometimes - come up with issues, and others will sometimes come up with technological developments. That’s where the sparks fly and the ideas for innovation are ignited.