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Pioneers of optogenetics in plenary speaker line-up for CLP 2025
Ed Boyden develops advanced technologies for analyzing, engineering, and simulating brain circuits to reveal and repair fundamental mechanisms behind complex brain processes.
Professor Boyden, PhD, is probably best known for pioneering optogenetics, a powerful method that enables scientists to control neurons using light.
He continues to invent new tools yielding ground-breaking strategies for neurological and psychiatric disorders—and the Academy is delighted that he will present his work, and his vision for the future, within Innovation in C-L Psychiatry: Exploring the Promise and Pitfalls of New Approaches, the program for this year’s ACLP Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, November 19-22.
Professor Boyden, PhD
“Your brain mediates everything that you sense, feel, think, and do,” says Professor Boyden. “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. These technologies include optogenetics and novel methods of non-invasive focal brain stimulation.
“We distribute our tools as freely as possible to the scientific community and aim to reveal the fundamental mechanisms of brain function that will yield new strategies for understanding and treating neurological and psychiatric disorders.”
Professor Boyden is Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a McGovern Institute investigator, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute(HHMI) investigator,and professor of brain and cognitive sciences, media arts and sciences, and biological engineering, at MIT. He leads MIT’s Synthetic Neurobiology Group, which develops tools for analyzing and repairing complex biological systems. He also co-directs the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering, which develops tools to accelerate neuroscience progress, and the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics, which pioneers transformational bionic interventions across a broad range of conditions affecting the body and mind.
Professor Boyden received his PhD in neurosciences from Stanford University. He started college at age 14, studying chemistry at the University of North Texas, and went on to earn three degrees from MIT in physics, electrical engineering, and computer science—all by age 19.
Long-term he hopes that understanding how the brain generates the mind will provide a deeper understanding of the human condition—and help humanity achieve a more enlightened state.
The Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry is a professional organization of physicians who provide psychiatric care to people with coexisting psychiatric and medical illnesses, both in hospitals and in primary care. Our specialty is called consultation-liaison psychiatry because we consult with patients and liaise with their other clinicians about their care.
With nearly 2,000 members, the Academy is the voice of consultation-liaison psychiatry in the US with international reach.
Please browse our website, read our journal, Psychosomatics, and come to our annual meeting which is in November each year. In 2020 it will be a virtual event – see www.CLP2020.org for more details.
If you are a C-L Psychiatrist and not yet a member please join our great organization and welcoming, inclusive community. Please visit this page for details on joining.
