Ed Boyden, PhD
Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology, McGovern Institute and HHMI
Novel tools that image and map the activity of the brain
We develop and systematically apply radical new technologies to analyze, repair, and simulate the brain, at a deep and mechanistic level.
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Research:
Your brain mediates everything that you sense, feel, think, and do. The brain is incredibly complex – each cubic millimeter of your brain contains perhaps a hundred thousand cells, connected by a billion synapses, each operating with millisecond precision. We develop tools that enable the mapping of the molecules and wiring of the brain, the recording and control of its neural dynamics, and the repair of its dysfunction. These technologies include expansion microscopy, which enables complex biological systems to be imaged with nanoscale precision; optogenetic tools, which enable the activation and silencing of neural activity with light; robotic methods for directed evolution that are yielding new synthetic biology reagents for dynamic imaging of physiological signals; novel methods of noninvasive focal brain stimulation; and new methods of nanofabrication using shrinking of patterned materials to create nanostructures with ordinary lab equipment. We distribute our tools as freely as possible to the scientific community, and also apply them to the systematic analysis of brain computations, aiming to reveal the fundamental mechanisms of brain function, and yielding new, ground-truth therapeutic strategies for neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Biography:
Professor Ed Boyden completed his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and a Master of Engineering at MIT. He completed PhD studies as a fellow in the Neurosciences Program at Stanford University. Professor Boyden joined MIT as an Assistant Professor in 2007, and is now a Professor in the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Media Arts and Sciences, and Biological Engineering, and an HHMI investigator.
