Dr Tianruo Guo is currently a Senior Lecturer of Neuromodulation and an Early Career Academic Fellow with the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, where Guo lead a computational modelling team dedicated to developing virtual nervous systems. His research focuses on studying neurophysiology and neural responses through both electrical and optogenetic stimulation. By integrating advanced computational techniques with experimental neuroscience, Dr. Guo is committed to unraveling the complex mechanisms of neuromodulation and advancing innovative approaches in bionic device design.

Guo pioneered the world-first simulation platform named "virtual human retina", for studying retinal degeneration and optimising stimulation strategies, providing enhanced artificial vision solutions. He uses computational models to guide his experimental investigations. In the last 10 years, Guo has gained extensive experience in recording electrophysiological signals from biological tissue, including the use of patch-clamping to record electrical activity in functionally-distinct retinal pathways.With this deep insight he has proposed a new stimulation scheme that allow different classes of retinal ganglion cells to be selectively excited. This has enormous potential in the design of visual prostheses as it will allow more realistic recreation of the visual scene – previously not possible with current state-of-the-art retinal neuroprostheses.

The Virtual Eye and Retina platform is designed to simulate the performance of drug delivery systems, implantable and wearable neural stimulators, as well as non-electrical stimulation approaches such as optogenetic and ultrasound-based stimulation.

Guo has to date published 80+ peer-reviewed publications in the field of neural engineering, neurophysiology and bio-signal processing. His research has appeared in journals such as Brain Stimulation and Journal of Nanobiotechnology. He has also been awarded over AUD 1.8 million in research, infrastructure and education funding. In 2023, Guo served as co-chair of the publicity committee for EMBC2023, the world’s largest international conference in biomedical engineering organized by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Guo also served as chair or co-chair for seven conference sessions at EMBC2018, 2023, and 2024. In 2024, he served as the topic editor for the special issue on "The Eye and The Chips" in the Journal of Neural Engineering.

Upcoming Presentations & Attendance

• The Eye & The Chip '25

  The Eye & The Chip '25: 14th World Research Congress on Artificial Vision

  September 28, 2025 - September 30, 2025

  The Westin Southfield Hotel, Southfield, MI, USA

Experience

• Senior Lecturer (2025 - present)

  Neuromodulation

  University of New South Wales (UNSW)

• Lecturer (2021 - 2025)

  University of New South Wales (UNSW)

• Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2015 - 2020)

  University of New South Wales (UNSW)

Education

• PhD, Computational Neuroscience (2011 - 2014)

  University of New South Wales (UNSW)