Merson Lecture 2024: tools for analysing and repairing the brain

Free event
Location: Level 7 Auditorium, Queesland Brain Institute

Ed Boyden is Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the MIT McGovern Institute, and professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Media Arts and Sciences, and Biological Engineering at MIT.

He leads the Synthetic Neurobiology Group, which develops tools for analysing and repairing complex biological systems, such as the brain, and applies them systematically to reveal ground truth principles of biological function and to repair these systems. He also co-directs the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering, which aims to develop new 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.

In the last five years alone, he has received the Wilhelm Exner Medal (2020), the Croonian Medal, the Lennart Nilsson Award, the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, and the Rumford Prize (all in 2019), and the Canada Gairdner International Award (2018).

Long-term, Ed hopes that understanding how the brain generates the mind will help provide a deeper understanding of the human condition, and help humanity achieve a more enlightened state.