Optogenetics: Illuminating the Path toward Causal Neuroscience

The Warren Alpert Foundation Prize honors Edward Boyden, Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Gero Miesenböck for the development of optogenetics as a way to control the activity of specific circuits in the nervous system, to determine their function and ultimately to control them to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders. Featured Speakers: Edward Boyden, PhD, Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT, Leader of the Synthetic Neurobiology Group in the MIT Media Lab, Investigator at McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, and HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholar at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Peter Hegemann, PhD, Hertie Professor of Neuroscience and head of experimental biophysics at Humboldt University of Berlin Gero Miesenböck, FRS, Waynflete Professor of Physiol