Stéphanie P. Lacour (born c. 1975) is a French neurotechnologist and full professor holding the Foundation Bertarelli Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Since January 2025, she is Vice President for Support to Strategic Initiatives at EPFL. Lacour is a pioneer in the field of stretchable electronics and directs a laboratory at EPFL which specializes in the development of Soft BioElectronic Interfaces to enable seamless integration of neuroprosthetic devices into human tissues. Lacour is also a co-founding member and director of the Center for Neuroprosthetics at the EPFL Satellite Campus in Geneva, Switzerland.
Early life and education Lacour was born around 1975 and grew up in France. She completed her M.Sc. in Integrated Electronic Devices at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) in Lyon, France, in 1998. After completing her master's degree, Lacour remained at INSA and conducted her graduate studies in Electrical Engineering from 1998 to 2001. In 2001, Lacour moved to the United States to work under the mentorship of Dr. Sigurd Wagner as postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University. During her time at Princeton, Lacour made significant advancements in developing stretchable electronics that could be implemented in biological systems more easily than typical electronic hardware. Lacour finished her postdoctoral work in 2005 and began further postdoctoral work at the University of Cambridge under the mentorship of Dr. James Fawcett where she began to explore the therapeutic potential of her technologies in repairing nerves after injury. In 2007, Lacour received the University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society and became a Research Project Manager and head of the Stretchable Bioelectronics group at the Nanoscience Centre in Cambridge, UK.
Stretchable integrated circuits In 2003, Lacour published a paper looking at implementing thin gold stripes onto elastomeric substances to make electronic skins more flexible and stretchable. She found that inducing micrometer long cracks in the gold made the stripes more stretchable, while inducing buckles in the gold made the stripes have lower resistance. Lacour and Wagner further found that electrical continuity could be preserved in gold stripes with micro-fractures, even when stretched by 1% and strained by up to 22%. The incredible degree of malleability and preserved electrical continuity that these thin gold films exhibit poised them to be essential in the future construction of 3D electronic circuits. An alternative to inducing micro-fractures in gold to enhance stretchability, is inducing wave-like buckles by placing the gold films on pre-stretched elastomeric substrates. Once these substrates relax, the gold creates surface waves which are repeatedly stretchable and can serve as interconnects for skin-like electronic circuits.
Stretchable Electrodes and Brain Injury Repair After developing these elastic technologies at Princeton, Lacour implemented stretchable microelectrode arrays (SMEAs) into organotypic hippocampal slice culture models of traumatic brain injury (TBI) to measure neural activity prior to, during, and after a trauma-like event. This tool will enable a better understanding of the biophysical changes during and resulting from injury to determine how neuronal dysfunction manifests in TBI. Once Lacour began her position as a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, she collaborated with surgeons and other medical professionals to explore the potential of using her stretchable circuits and electrodes for nerve repair after injury. Since injured axons can be assisted in their regeneration through mechanical guidance, Lacour sought to design an implantable device to mechanically guide axon repair. Using polyimide as the substrate, Lacour rolled 2D gold microelectrodes and microchannels into 3D channel bundles to fit around axons. These 3D electrode channel devices fixed to polymer substrates not only provide an innovative tool for in vivo guided axon regeneration but also set the stage for in vivo electrode implants that can communicate with multiple groups of nerve fibers, one day possibly enabling effective communication between a prosthetic and the human body. Lacour later began to experiment with different substrates with which to build stretchable electronics that are more compatible with biological systems in vivo. Instead of using rigid, inorganic materials, like silicon, Lacour tested the viability of using pulsed lasers to create diamond-like carbon microstructures on polydimethylsiloxane. She found that human skin cells were able to coat the substrate, making the technology suitable for future incorporation in medical devices and prostheses. To further explore the potential of creating efficient and biocompatible in vivo neural interfaces, Lacour and her colleagues focused their attention to making microelectrode arrays more mechanically compliant. By embedding thin, gold microelectrodes in a polymer that can be rolled and flexed, Lacour and her team were able to create improved interfaces between the device and neural tissue. Another goal of Lacour's research in Cambridge was to apply her stretchable electronics to produce sensory e-skins, so she began to design technologies in this realm. Lacour applied her thin, gold films onto silicone rubber and was able to create multifunctional, capacitative sensors that can detect and localize touch as well as record pressure and strain. Merging this tool with commercial transducer electronics will enable the production of sensory e-skins. The e-skins that Lacour was working towards developing could be merged with her in vivo stretchable electronic interfaces to enable people with prosthetic limbs to not only sense their environment with their prosthesis but also integrate it into their nervous system such that they have autonomous mental control over their own limbs.
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