Unconventional Communications and Computing Laboratory

We develop low-power, batteryless, and beyond-silicon communication and computing technologies for bioengineering and biomedical technology.

Our work spans in-vitro neural platforms (e.g., microelectrode arrays), bioelectronic interfaces, and molecular/biological communication models, with an emphasis on experimentally grounded engineering and quantitative inference.

We work at the boundary between engineered living systems and information technology: how to sense, stimulate, model, and control biological substrates reliably enough for real research workflows and, longer term, translational devices.

Core themes

Synthetic Biological Intelligence and in-vitro neuroengineering

Engineering and measuring living neural networks (2D/3D) on microelectrode arrays, and developing analysis/control pipelines that treat these systems as dynamical computational substrates. We use bioprinting and neurons-on-a-chip methods for engineering intelligence in-vitro.

Bioelectronic interfaces and Neuromorphic computing

Architectures and signal processing for energy-constrained biointerfaces (including “batteryless” directions), and the modelling needed to make these systems predictable across variable biological environments. We focus on neuromorphic solutions where interfaces have neuro-derived intelligence towards energy cost-effective biomedical technology.

Molecular and biological communications

Theory and modelling of communication in biological media (e.g., signalling pathways), including how biological signalling can be framed as computation and control.

AI for Biosciences

AI/ML methods for bioscience data streams (MEA time-series, spike trains, and microscopy), focused on turning experimental data into quantitative readouts (metrics, prediction, and uncertainty) that can support assay development, reproducible analysis, and closed-loop experimental workflows.

Our interdisciplinary team contain academics from computer science, electronic engineering, bioinformatics and biologists with a proven international profile with world-wide research impact. UC2 also welcomes UG and PGT students interested in developing novel and exciting unconventional technology.

Related courses

Our research

The UC2 Lab interdisciplinary research efforts uses in-silico and in-vitro methods aided by AI and computational tools with focus on novel bioengineering and biotechnology.

We are effortlessly contributing to research areas such as molecular communications, synthetic biology, DNA/biological data storage, biocomputing, 3D cell culturing, organ on a chip, multiphysics biological interfaces, and AI aided biology and biotechnology.

Our most recent work shows how biological computing can be delivered using living systems and AI, we also have built hybrid biological and silicon interfaces with biosensing capabilities, and have pushed the application of our biological computing towards viable biomedical solutions.

Our research team has been funded through various UK and European research programmes through a wide variety of projects. Our current projects are:

MSCA Doctoral Network: BRAINET — Networked Distributed Neural Interfaces for Interference-Based Brain Stimulation (Grant ID 101225775). Start: 1 Jan 2026; End: 31 Dec 2029; EU contribution: €4,360,039.20. University of Essex is a beneficiary (net EU contribution: €697,476.24).
MSCA Doctoral Network: QUESTING — Designing, Managing and Debugging Quantum Networks (Grant ID 101227218). Start: 1 Dec 2025; End: 30 Nov 2029; EU contribution: €4,552,002.36. The project description states it will train 15 doctoral candidates. University of Essex is a beneficiary (net EU contribution: €348,738.12).
UKRI BBSRC: Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) (Ref: BB/Y513362/1). Funded value: £164,656. Funded period: Feb 2024 – Oct 2026. Lead organisation: University of Essex. PI: Pierre Laissue. Michael Barros a Co-Investigator.

Infrastructure

CSEE’s state-of-the-art cleanroom
Axion Edge Microelectrode Array (MEA)
3D bioprinting based on GRAPES1 by CopnerBioTech
3D printers for medical devices and microfluidics
Mammalian cell-culture facility (incubator, microscope, inverted microscope, etc.)