Cortical Labs, the creators of DishBrain, have raised $15 million to bring their research-based biotech to pharmaceutical and tech companies. 

DishBrain is a biological computer that fuses living brain cells onto computing devices. Cortical Labs' aim is to replace rat-based drug testing and explore neural networks. 

The first paying customers of Cortical Labs’ CL1 system are set to be pharmaceutical companies such as UK-based Bit Bio, which has signed up to receive the bio computers in the fourth quarter of 2023. 

The company also aims to target software businesses wanting to explore natural language processing and other artificial intelligence technologies.

Cortical Labs' founder, Dr Hon Weng Chong, made headlines after DishBrain was taught to play the computer game Pong and the achievement was published in Neuron magazine in October last year. 

Amazon's chief technology officer, Werner Vogel, visited the laboratory of the 11-person team in Melbourne in January to observe how the collection of cells linked to a computer device can decipher calculations and perform complex tasks.

The company had been experimenting with combining biological neurons from mouse embryos with silicon, but Dr Chong found the whole process “quite messy”. So he began exploring with human adult “pluripotent stem cells”. 

Taking the blood from an adult, he was able to wind back the clock to the stem cell stage and then begin generating new cell lines, including brain cells.

Hong Kong-based Horizon Ventures led the Series A capital raising round, and investor Jonathan Tam says he’s enjoyed watching Dr Chong expand “what sounded like a crazy idea about synthetic neurons eight years ago” into a revenue-generating business. 

“We see a lot of applications around in vitro testing, cognitive testing and as an experimentation platform for drug development,” Mr Tam said.

Dr Chong is bracing for a wave of “quirky” requests but says the healthcare system has strict ethics processes in place, and working with biological products in any capacity is heavily regulated. 

“The minute these things are conscious, we need to have a serious conversation as a society around how we interact with them. I’m heartened to see this philosophical discussion happening in the health sciences industries around the world,” he said.