Megan Sucdellari from Spectrum Magazine covered our Neural Engineering Conference in Shanghai, with this excellent piece, Radio-Controlled Genes. Dr. Galit Pelled, an associate professor at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, presented her research on Sunday at NER 2017. She and her team have enabled a rat brain to sense electromagnetic fields thanks to the gene of a catfish. A newly discovered gene, belonging to the glass catfish, appears to give cells the ability to respond to magnetic fields and can be used to non-invasively manipulate brain and heart cells. The researchers say the technique opens the possibility of creating wireless biological heart pacemakers, treating epilepsy, or even constructing brain-machine interfaces that use electromagnetic signals to communicate with human cells.