Building the Electronics That Dissolve Inside Your Brain

What if a brain implant could do its job and then dissolve? That is the question Maria Cerezo-Sanchez asked during her PhD at the University of Glasgow, and it became the foundation for Neurobite Technologies.

Current neural implants are made of rigid electronics, essentially a sewing needle left inside a jelly-like organ. The brain fights back with inflammation and scar tissue, degrading the implant’s ability to record and stimulate activity. Maria’s team is developing flexible, dissolvable devices that work with the brain rather than against it, targeting drug-resistant epilepsy and stroke recovery.

This episode follows Maria from setting up a biology lab in an electronics department where nobody wanted to play with cells, through IP negotiations that took two years, to building a team of four on grant funding and preparing for her first private raise. An honest conversation about the gap between academic innovation and the regulated reality of getting an implantable medical device into a human brain.

Key Topics Covered

• Why current brain implants fail: rigid electronics, inflammation, and the scar tissue problem

• From flexible to dissolvable: adding layers of complexity to solve a harder problem

• IP strategy for PhD students: publication versus patents, and why it took two years to negotiate

• Navigating regulation across the UK, EU, and US — and why geopolitics now matters to founders

• The co-founder relationship: switching from PhD supervisor to equal partner

• Fundraising as a full-time job: preparing for a first private raise in 2026

• Why you don’t have to be a stereotypical CEO to lead a company