Edward S. Boyden is an American neuroscientist at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. He is the Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology, a faculty member in the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

and an associate member of the

McGovern Institute for Brain Research The McGovern Institute for Brain Research is a research institute within MIT. Its mission is to understand how the brain works and to discover new ways to prevent or treat brain disorders. The institute was founded in 2000 by Patrick McGover ...

. In 2018 he was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He is recognized for his work on

optogenetics Optogenetics is a biological technique to control the activity of neurons or other cell types with light. This is achieved by expression of light-sensitive ion channels, pumps or enzymes specifically in the target cells. On the level of individ ...

. In this technology, a light-sensitive ion channel such as

channelrhodopsin-2 Channelrhodopsins are a subfamily of retinylidene proteins ( rhodopsins) that function as light-gated ion channels. They serve as sensory photoreceptors in unicellular green algae, controlling phototaxis: movement in response to light. Expressed ...

is genetically expressed in neurons, allowing neuronal activity to be controlled by light. There were early efforts to achieve targeted optical control dating back to 2002 that did not involve a directly light-activated ion channel, but it was the method based on directly light-activated channels from microbes, such as channelrhodopsin, emerging in 2005 that turned out to be broadly useful. Optogenetics in this way has been widely adopted by neuroscientists as a research tool, and it is also thought to have potential therapeutic applications. Boyden joined the MIT faculty in 2007, and continues to develop new optogenetic tools as well as other technologies for the manipulation of brain activity. Previously, Boyden received degrees in electrical engineering, computer science, and physics from MIT. During high school, Boyden attended the

Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science The Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science (TAMS) is a two-year residential early entrance college program serving approximately 375 high school juniors and seniors at the University of North Texas. Students are admitted from every region of ...

Awards

In 2008 Boyden was named by

Discover Magazine ''Discover'' is an American general audience science magazine launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It has been owned by Kalmbach Publishing since 2010. History Founding ''Discover'' was created primarily through the efforts of ''Time'' m ...

as one of the top 20 scientists under 40. In 2006, he was named to the

Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

TR35 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...

as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2013 he shared the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award for Biotechnology and Medicine with Karl Deisseroth and Gero Miesenböck. On November 29, 2015, Edward Boyden was one of five scientists honored with the

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a scientific award, funded by internet entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan of Facebook; Sergey Brin of Google; entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, one of the ...

, awarded for “transformative advances toward understanding living systems and extending human life.” He has received the 2015

BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards () are an international award programme recognizing significant contributions in the areas of scientific research and cultural creation. The categories that make up the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards ...

in Biomedicine, jointly with

Karl Deisseroth Karl Alexander Deisseroth (born November 18, 1971) is an American scientist. He is the D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. He is known for creating and developing the technolo ...

and

Gero Miesenböck Gero Andreas Miesenböck (born 15 July 1965) is an Austrian scientist. He is currently Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (CNCB) at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen ...

, for the development of optogenetics, the most unique technique for studying the brain today. In 2018, Boyden won the Canada Gairdner Foundation International Award, jointly with

and Peter Hegemann. In 2019, he was awarded the

Rumford Prize Founded in 1796, the Rumford Prize, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is one of the oldest scientific prizes in the United States. The prize recognizes contributions by scientists to the fields of heat and light. These terms ...

for "extraordinary contributions related to the invention and refinement of optogenetics," with

Ernst Bamberg Ernst Bamberg (b. in Krefeld) is a German biophysicist and director emeritus of the Department of Biophysical Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics. Career Bamberg received his PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Ba ...

Peter Hegemann Peter Hegemann (born 11 December 1954) is a Hertie Senior Research Chair for Neurosciences and a Professor of Experimental Biophysics at the Department of Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. He is known ...

, and

Georg Nagel Georg Nagel (born 24 August 1953 in Weingarten, Germany) is a biophysicist and professor at the Department for Neurophysiology at the University of Würzburg in Germany. His research is focused on microbial photoreceptors and the development of op ...

. In the same year, he, Deisseroth, Hegemann, and Miesenböck won the

Warren Alpert Foundation Prize The Warren Alpert Foundation Prize is awarded annually to scientist(s) whose scientific achievements have led to the prevention, cure or treatment of human diseases or disorders, and/or whose research constitutes a seminal scientific finding that ho ...

. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2019. In 2020, Boyden was awarded with the

Wilhelm Exner Medal The Wilhelm Exner Medal has been awarded by the Austrian Industry Association, (ÖGV), for excellence in research and science since 1921. The medal is dedicated to Wilhelm Exner (1840–1931), former president of the Association, who initialize ...

.''Edward S. Boyden''
retrieved on 29. June 2020 in Wilhelmexner.org

References

External links

Ed Boyden's personal home pageBoyden lab page at MIT Media LabMcGovern Institute for Brain Research
at

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

SPIE TV: Ed Boyden: Expansion microscopy -- A new tool in brain research
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyden, Edward 1979 births Living people American neuroscientists MIT School of Architecture and Planning faculty MIT Media Lab people Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences MIT Department of Physics alumni