# People Graph — Neurotech Packet Synthesis **Date:** 2026-09-11 **Packet source:** [[research/Research Packets - Shard 01 - 2026-09-11|Research Packets — Shard 01 Completion Ledger]] ## Transfer vectors ### Sumner Norman and Tyson Aflalo Norman and Aflalo co-founded [[wiki/Forest Neurotech|Forest Neurotech]] in 2023 and are also named by OpenAI as co-founders of [[wiki/Merge Labs|Merge Labs]] in 2026. What moves with them is the ultrasound-interface program: brain-wide functional measurement, the Forest 1/Butterfly hardware lineage, and the ambition to turn an externally addressed field into a higher-bandwidth interface. This is a `STRONG_TECHNICAL_LINEAGE` edge. Corporate ownership or patent transfer remains `UNRESOLVED` pending filings or a direct organizational statement. ### Mikhail Shapiro Shapiro links Caltech’s acoustic biomolecular engineering to both organizations: advisor to Forest and co-founder of Merge. The competence carried is biological transduction of ultrasound, which supplies cell-level selectivity to a field that can reach deep tissue. His role is a scientific-lineage edge rather than evidence that a complete sonogenetic interface has been demonstrated by Merge. ### Philip Sabes Sabes moved from a UCSF academic interface program through co-founding Neuralink to the 2026 CEO role at [[wiki/Arbor Neuroscience|Arbor Neuroscience]]. His stated redirection is from external-device control toward model-guided neuromodulation: stimulate a circuit, measure the response, and use longitudinal data to select the next intervention. ### Thomas Oxley Oxley carried the Stentrode from the University of Melbourne into [[wiki/Synchron|Synchron]]. The transferred competence is endovascular delivery: adapting catheter and stent practice from interventional medicine to chronic neural recording. This personnel path explains the company’s distinct access geometry. ### Matt Angle, Stephen Ryu, and the Connect-One investigators Angle founded [[wiki/Paradromics|Paradromics]] around high-channel-count intracortical recording. Ryu and site investigators Matthew Willsey, Aditya S. Pandey, David Brandman, and Daniel Rubin connect that engineering program to Stanford, Michigan, UC Davis, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the long academic lineage of penetrating-array BCI research. Clinical leadership and principal-investigator roles are labeled separately from founding and ownership. ### Hon Weng Chong, Brett Kagan, Rickie Patani, and Jamie Khoo Chong and Kagan carry Cortical Labs from DishBrain into CL1; Patani supplies the NUS neurobiology and culture program; Khoo supplies DayOne’s datacentre operations. Their intersection is a formal three-party deployment, not a merged organization. What moves across the edge is a managed operating environment for living compute. ### The reconstruction line Thomas Macrina, J. Alexander Bae, Sven Dorkenwald, Szi-Chieh Yu, Arie Matsliah, H. Sebastian Seung, Mala Murthy, and collaborators recur across FlyWire, MICrONS, and [[wiki/Zetta AI|Zetta AI]]. The transfer object is a petascale reconstruction pipeline: alignment, segmentation, synapse detection, proofreading, and analysis. Authorship overlap supports technical genealogy; contracts and corporate ownership require separate records. ## Source anchors - [OpenAI — named Merge Labs co-founders](https://openai.com/index/investing-in-merge-labs/) - [Arbor Neuroscience — Forest history and current leadership](https://www.arborneuroscience.org/about.html) - [Forest Neurotech — founders and advisors](https://forestneurotech.org/about-forest) - [Paradromics — first Connect-One implantation team](https://paradromics.com/news/paradromics-completes-first-human-brain-computer-interface-bci-implantation/) - [NUS Medicine — Cortical Labs, DayOne, and NUS roles](https://medicine.nus.edu.sg/news/nus-medicine-dayone-and-cortical-labs-unveil-biological-data-center-prototype-in-singapore/) - [Zetta AI — team publication lineage](https://zetta.ai/)