Professor Nicholas Opie

Chief Executive Officer  |  Ultra Bionics

Founding Director  |  Synchron Inc.

Professor, Head of Vascular Bionics Laboratory   |   University of Melbourne

Nicholas Opie BE BSc PhD MBA is a biomedical engineer and world expert in neural interfaces. He is a Professor, NHRMC Research Fellow and Laboratory Head of the Vascular Bionics Laboratory, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, founding CEO of Ultra Bionics Pty Ltd and an advisor and mentor to many young entrepreneurs and start-ups.

Prof Opie has taken multiple biomedical devices from concept to clinic. From 2007-2014, Opie played an integral role in the development and translation of a suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis, a bionic eye that provided sight to numerous individuals with profound vision loss. In 2012, Prof Opie founded Synchron and developed their flagship product the Stentrode. His minimally invasive brain-computer interface has restored independence and communication to tens of people worldwide living with severe paralysis, by enabling them to control external devices such as computers and mobile phones direct with their thoughts. Synchron has raised over AUD$210M, with Opie’s Stentrode listed in Time Magazine’s Top 100 Inventions of 2021. The Stentrode is currently continuing US clinical trials.

Through the award of over 30 local and international grants, Prof Opie has also published more than 70 peer reviewed articles in high-impact journals including Nature Biomedical Engineering and Nature Biotechnology. He has filed over 100 patents on neurotechnologies designed to restore the human condition and has given more than 160 orations on his medical research and the future of neurotechnology. He was awarded the Paul Shetler Disrupter of the Year Award in 2023, the NFMRI John Raftos AM Award for Advancing Innovation in 2022 and the Brain-Computer-Interface Award in 2021.