Biology works through a series of feedback loops. Together, they make circuits. These circuits govern aging, behavior, development, metabolism, pregnancy, and more. Sensing and regulating these circuits unlocks new modalities for medicine.

Take the artificial pancreas: an engineered loop between a glucose monitor and an insulin pump for treating diabetes. Beyond glucose regulation though, there are few loops we can watch in real time, let alone control. Current biomedical devices aren’t designed for the task. We need new tools to sense the hormones, metabolites, drugs, and immune factors we care about. Biosensors often don’t work as fast or for as long as we need. And we don’t know enough to make the next generation of devices useful, long-lasting, and comfortable. But recent advances in science and technology enable a new bioengineering paradigm.

Protein engineering enables us to create sensors that can detect many different molecules. Bioelectronics allows us to read and write, directly and precisely, in the body in real time. Control theory gives us the scaffolding for safe, personalized, and autonomous use. Melody is weaving these disciplines together to create new types of biomedical devices. We aim to repeat the success of diabetes care across many more brain-body-behavior interactions. Our tools and data will be open source and under the control of their end users. Our goal is to create public goods: proteins, devices, and human datasets to accelerate biomedical progress.