Maurer, Benedikt
Inst. f. Biomedizinische Technik
Gloriastrasse 37/ 39
8092
Zürich
Switzerland
Research Interests
The underlying mechanisms of memory and learning in the brain are still poorly understood. Engineered biological neural networks with reduced complexity on microelectrode arrays (MEAs) could serve fundamental neuroscience research as a robust and explainable model system for long-term experiments.
Spiking behaviour is heavily affected by environmental parameters such as temperature, pH and osmolarity. In my work I develop a long-term culturing and MEA-based electrophysiology readout system, with closed-loop stimulation and fluidic control. This will facilitate high-throughput, week-long experiments investigating activity-dependent plasticity effects and drug experiments.
CMOS HD-MEAs offer subcellular resolution, which can enable the unravelling of the information flow through patterned networks. I work with deriving the principles of the network input-output relationship by analysing the activity patterns following electrical stimuli.
Student projects
If you are looking for a project or thesis and the topics I work on sound interesting to you feel free to contact me via e-mail to discuss potential projects. Please attach your CV and recent transcript of records. I can offer projects with focus on hardware development, coding and data analysis or cell culturing.
Education
I obtained my Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialisation on Biomedical Systems Engineering from RWTH Aachen University in 2021. My Master education comprised one academic year at Imperial College London, a 6 month industry internship at CorTec GmbH in Freiburg i. Br. and a Master thesis in the Micro-Nanosystems and Bioelectronics group at IWE1, RWTH Aachen. In November 2021 I joined LBB as a PhD student to work in the field of bottom-up neuroscience.
Publications
Maurer, B. et al. (2024) external page Inkube: An all-in-one solution for neuron culturing, electrophysiology, and fluidic exchange. preprint available on bioarxiv
Duru, J. and Maurer, B. et al. (2023) external page Investigation of the input-output relationship of engineered neural networks using high-density microelectrode arrays. Biosensors and Bioelectronics
Poster Presentations
"A high-throughput single-cell stimulation platform to study plasticity in engineered neural networks in vitro".
B. Maurer, S.J. Ihle, J. Duru, K. Vulić, T. Ruff, G. Amos, J. Vörös. FENS Forum 2024, Vienna, Austria, 25 - 29 June 2024.
"Single-well liquid handling and temperature control in a high-throughput electrophysiology system for patterned neural networks"
B. Maurer, S.J. Ihle, S. Fassbind, J. Duru, T. Ruff, J. Vörös
4th In-Vitro 2D & 3D Neuronal Networks Summit, Zurich, Switzerland, 8 - 10 April 2024
"QUANTIFYING ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS ON SPIKING ACTIVITY IN ENGINEERED NEURAL NETWORKS"
B. Maurer, S.J. Ihle, S. Fassbind, J. Duru, T. Ruff, J. Vörös
iPSZürich 2024 Symposium, Zurich, Switzerland, 4 - 5 April 2024.
"A platform for inducing spike-time dependent plasticity in patterned neural networks"
B. Maurer, S.J. Ihle, J. Duru, K. Vulić, T. Ruff, J. Vörös
Neuroscience 2024, Washington, D.C., United States, 11-15 November 2023
"Towards a fully automated drug testing platform with engineered neural networks in vitro"
B. Maurer, S. J. Ihle, S. Fassbind, J. Duru, T. Ruff, J. Vörös
Microphysiological Systems Worlds Summit, Berlin, Germany, 26 - 30 June 2023
"Tracking activity pathways in low-density patterned neural networks"
B. Maurer, J. Duru, R. Jelitto, N. Wyssen, T. Ruff, R. John, S. J. Ihle, J. Vörös
MxW Summit, Zürich, Switzerland, 15 - 17 May 2023
"Stimulation sensitivity analysis of response traces of patterned neural networks in vitro."
B. Maurer, J. Duru, S. J. Ihle, C. Giles Doran, J. Küchler, J. Vörös
Biointerfaces International, Zürich, Switzerland, 13 - 15 September 2022
"Investigating electrically evoked responses of patterned neural networks on HD-MEAs"
Benedikt Maurer, Jens Duru, Stephan J. Ihle, Joël Küchler, Robert John, János Vörös
FENS 2022, Paris, France, 9 - 13 July 2022
"Studying the information processing of small patterned neural networks in vitro"
Benedikt Maurer, Jens Duru, Stephan J. Ihle, Ciara Giles Doran, Joël Küchler, Robert John, János Vörös
MEA meeting 2022, Tübingen, Germany, 5 - 8 July 2022