April Fools Advisor Joke

At last year's April Fools Day, my labmates and I decided to play a prank on our advisor.

Daryl Kipke is perhaps best known for running the Center for Neural Communication Technology here at the University of Michigan. This Center manufactures the well known "Michigan" probes, which are tiny silicon brain electrodes made using printed circuit technology. A couple years ago, while the Center was in an odd spot in between grants and funding cycles, Daryl and some former students in the lab spun off the technology into a start-up company, NeuroNexus technologies.

The company is now doing very well, and it is pretty much a success story of technology transfer from basic University Research Engineering in the 80's and 90's to a healthy local company. However, since all the designs and fabrication processes are well documented and published in the science/engineering literature, what's to stop a competitor from making the same probes and selling them for less?

Boom. April Fools Day Prank is set. My friend Greg designed a website that convincingly depicted a Chinese start-up company named NeuroNextStep making the EXACT same probes, but for almost 20% of NeuroNexus's price! In fact, the most expensive probe  on NeuroNextStep's website (a 64 channel chronic polyimide probe that is $225) is still cheaper then NeuroNexus's cheapest probe (an acute 16 channel probe -$290). 

You can see the website looks very legitimate. It's not until you click on the "Chinese Version" link that the April Fools banner pops up (the April Fools link on the side bar was only added later when the gig was up). My friend Luis made a bogus press release and forwarded it to one of the NeuroNexus employees (Rio), with the idea that the website would find its way up to Daryl.

Rio's response was great. "I took those pictures! How could they be so blatant? They stole the damn pictures straight off our own website!" He then went upstairs to find Daryl, but along the way ran into one of us who couldn't keep a straight face, and he realized it was a joke. Becoming a true confederate, Rio forwarded the NeuroNextStep website and press release to the rest of the company.

From: Rio Vetter  

To: Daryl Kipke; David J. Anderson; Jamie Hetke; Kc Kong

Subject: URGENT!!

Holy crap, check this out guys.  We’ve joked about this, but can you believe it?



Johnson & Johnson to Acquire NeuroNextStep.

Beijing, China

April 1, 2007 - Johnson & Johnson Inc. (NYSE: JNJ; 
www.jnj.com) has agreed to acquire Beijing-based NeuroNextStep 
Technologies, an innovative medical device company, for approximately 
$52 million in up-front cash and JNJ stock, plus potential 
performance-based consideration. The acquisition will strengthen JNJ's 
global marketplace and medical device platform, while opening several 
new lines of business and creating significant new monetization 
opportunities for the company. The deal also represents a major 
opportunity for NeuroNextStep to advance its leadership in neural 
intervention strategies and offer people worldwide new ways to overcome 
neurological disabilities in a new era. NeuroNextStep and JNJ will 
create an unparalleled medical device solution  for neurologists and 
neurosurgeons around the world to provide their patients.

"The brain is the next frontier in medical device products," said 
William C. Weldon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JNJ. "By 
combining the leading medical franchise, JNJ, with the leader in 
intracortical neural probe technology, we will create an 
extraordinarily powerful solution for neurosurgeons worldwide."

Founded in 2005 by Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee, NeuroNextStep 
offers intracortical neural probes that may be the key to solving a 
plethora of neurological disorders such as paralysis and blindness. The 
NeuroNextStep probes are microfabricated similarly to microprocessors, 
and enables electrical and chemical brain activity to be recorded and 
processed by external computer equipment. NeuroNextStep provides its 
probes at a low-cost compared to similar North American products. 
Upcoming product innovations include polymer-based and microfluidic 
devices.

One of the fastest growing and innovating companies in the field, 
NeuroNextStep already has customers in Australia, New Zealand, and 
Great Britain. NeuroNextStep is currently adding approximately 15 
customers per month and has created a thriving ecosystem of products. 
NeuroNextStep is considered the market leader in virtually all 
countries in which it does business. In Australia alone, NeuroNextStep 
has more users than any other neural device provider. 



Daryl's e-mail response when he saw this?

"[inappropriate for blogger]...My heart is beating 10x faster than it should. You got me. Now [in appropriate for blogger]"

It all cooled down rather quickly and Daryl and everyone laughed about it by the end of the day. Daryl said "With sweaty hands, I had my phone out, and was dialing the number of my lawyer, literally about to call him, when I randomly clicked on the "Chinese Version" link and realized it was a prank. "

Once Daryl found out Greg was the owner of the website, Greg received an unusual call from him. Mind you, Greg was a few beers deep at a Detroit Tigers game when he received the call. The content of that call is unknown.

All in all, nothing serious happened, and the prank became part of lab lore. We still make idle plans to make polo shirts of the company. I'd love to have a coffee mug of NeuroNextStep.

"Best Probe for Your Neuroscience Need"