Oshiorenoya Agabi, a Nigerian Tech startup founder has created a device that he says can be used to detect the smell of explosives and also cancer cells by fusing live neurons from stem cells into a silicon chip.
Agabi’s Tech startup, Koniku is the first and only company on the planet building chips with biological neurons.
Koniku’s flagship product, called the Koniku Kore was unveiled at the TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania on Sunday. Osh Agabi said he is looking to fix real world problems by combining nuerology with silicon technology
“We merged synthetic neurobiology with traditional silicon technology with the goal of fixing urgent real world problems,” He said
In an interview with CNN, Agabi identified security and health as one of those problems and detailed how his device can be of use.
“One of the problems that plagues us right now is security, explosives have particles and smells coming off the individual and with our device you can tell, without requiring line of sight or contact, you can scan them at the time at a place of your own choosing and you can get into an aircraft and go about your business.”
The young scientist also explained how it is possible to detect diseases using the device
“In the same way that a dog is able to detect if someone has prostrate cancer, the real question we ask is ‘how does a dog do it?’ We can clone that process on our chip, so yes in the same way that a dog can detect diseases or explosives at an airport, it’s a sensory system, that is essentially what we recreate in our chip.”
According to the him, the start-up, Koniku, which was founded in 2015 had already raised $8 million in revenue.
Agabi grew up Surulere – a suburb of Lagos, Nigeria, and obtained a Bachelors degree in Physics from University of Lagos. He then travelled to Sweden and Switzerland to further his studies in physics and neuroscience.
No comments:
Post a Comment