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We’re delighted to be able to congratulate Ed Boyden, Faculty Member in Neuroscience, on recently being awarded the prestigious ‘Brain Prize’.

The €1 million Brain Prize is awarded by the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation in Copenhagen in recognition of highly influential and original work on brain research.

Ed and his co-recipients Ernst Bamberg, Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, Gero Miesenböck and Georg Nagel were awarded the 2013 prize for their role in developing ‘optogenetics’, a revolutionary technique that allows specific populations of neurones to be switched on or off. In the words of Professor Colin Blakemore, Chairman of the selection committee for the prize:

“Optogenetic control of nerve cells is arguably the most important technical advance in neuroscience in the past 40 years. It offers a revolution in our understanding of the way in which circuits of neurons carry out complex functions, such as learning and controlling movement.”

Ed joined the Neuronal & Glial Cell Biology section of F1000 in 2010, and has written ‘A history of optogenetics: the development of tools for controlling brain circuits with light’ for F1000Prime Reports, an adapted version of which was published as an article in The Scientist magazine.

A full press release from the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation can be read here.

Congratulations to all the recipients!