Micro-scale tools and electronics for
biological and brain applications.

We develop state-of-the-art microelectronic implantable devices for studying the brain and for therapeutics.

The lab is headed by David Tsai. We are located at the University of New South Wales, as part of the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering and School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications.

Learn more

  • 2025 Jul

    Showcased our neural implants at the 2nd International Conference on AI Sensors and Transducers

  • 2025 Mar

    David gave an invited talk on our research on CMOS brain implants at IEEE EDTM 2025.

  • 2024 Nov

    Congratulations to Jiawen for winning the GSBmE Award for Research Quality, and Shaun for winning EE&T School thesis poster competition.

  • 2024 Oct

    Presented our work at Neuroscience Spotlight at NeuRA (Neuroscience Research Australia), on implantables brain machine interfaces.

  • 2024 Oct

    Hosted delegation from National Tsing Hua Univ (Profs. Chiu, Mou, Drs. Lin, Lin) at UNSW EE&T, Biomed & ANFF

  • 2024 Sept

    S3B Semiconductor Taiwan Delegation '24: David at SEMICON Taiwan 2024.

  • 2024 Sept

    S3B Semiconductor Taiwan Delegation '24: Visited 3 institutes (ITRI, TSRI, Academica Sinica), 3 companies (Micron, Airoha, Foxconn) and 4 universities.

  • 2024 July

    Presented our research at the UNSW Bioelectronics Symposium.

  • 2024 May

    UNSW Team (Prof Lovell, Dr Do, Dr Tsai) visits HKU for Joint Workshop, with representatives from HKU, Harvard (Prof David Weitz) and TUM (Prof Andreas Bausch)

  • 2024 Mar

    Peijun, Yuyang and David presented our brain machine interface research at the UNSW Health Expo.

  • 2023 Nov

    David visited colleagues and presented work at Hong Kong University and Advanced Biomedical Instrumentation Centre

  • 2023 Nov

    Congratulations to Lachlan for winning BESS Award for Scientific Communication

  • 2023 Oct

    Peijun received the UNSW Engineering Excellence Award 2023 for postgraduate students.

  • 2023 Jun

    David gave a keynote on large-scale brain machine interfaces at IBMD Research Week ‘23

  • 2023 Feb

    David gave invited talk at the 3rd Optogenetics Australia Meeting at Flinders Univ.

  • 2022 Dec

    Visited collaborators and presented research at DGIST, South Korea.

  • 2022 Dec

    David gave invited talk at the UWS Sensory Neuroscience Symposium.

  • 2022 Dec

    Yuyang and David presented research at the ANS Conference 2022, Melbourne.

  • 2022 Jun

    New paper on electrical stimulation of midget RGCs at the human fovea

  • 2021 Dec

    Daniel presented our research on photovoltaic sub-dermal implants, with UNSW SPREE colleagues, at PVSEC-31.

  • 2021 Oct

    Madhu and Keith presented work on bionic eye at The Eye and The Chip.

  • 2021 Sep

    Michael presented our work on retinal implants and model of primate retina at NIAS conference.

  • 2021 Jun

    UNSW Mini Solar Team wins the 2021 international VIP Consortium Innovation Competition.

  • 2020 Dec

    David gave an invited talk on CMOS-based brain machine interfaces at NEWIDEA 2020

Teaching

Between 2019, when I joined UNSW, and 2025, I have personally taught more than 1,500 students, with as many as 400+ per year. The classes I teach spans undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering:

  • BIOM9640 Biomedical Instrumentation

  • DESN2000 Engineering Design & Professional Practice

  • BIOM9650 Biosensors & Transducers

  • Mini Solar Vertically Integrated Projects.

Find out more here.

During this period I also supervised to completion over 30 honours thesis students, many of whom have received recognitions for their project, including: EE&T Thesis Poster Competition Winner (Shaun Braggs), GSBME Award for Research Quality (Jiawen Han), and BEES Award for Scientific Communication (Lachlan Fraser).

I have been very involved in education initiatives and leadership across the School (Biomedical Engineering Learning & Teaching Committee, School Academic Adviser) and the Faculty (Engineering Faculty Education Committee, Engineering Quality Assurance Committee), with initiatives such as developing our new Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering degree program (2026 onwards), Engineer Australia Accreditation, and improving Faculty-wide engineering design courses.

I have been awarded > $107,000 in educational grants. Our teaching-related research has been presented at places such as the UNSW Education Festival. Our Vertically Integrated Project has won university-level and international accolades:

  • 2021 VIP International Consortium Innovation Competition

  • 2020 UNSW VIP Video Competition

Get in touch

Our labs are located in the new Bioscience South building (E26) as well as the Samuels Building (F25), both at the UNSW upper campus, in close proximity to Medicine and Biological Sciences.