Welcome to the After-On podcast. I'm your host, Rob Reed.

And this is a series of conversations with thinkers, founders, and scientists.

Take a little time and stretch out because these talks are unhurry and meant to bring you

to a top percentile understanding of something important.

Also, whether you're in to start-up score ideas, a techie or a lit major, take your time,

engage your mind, and you'll be glad you did.

Especially this week when we'll be talking to Ed Boydon, who's one of biology's most

influential young researchers.

Indeed, Ed is one of the most influential researchers of any age in biology.

Though he's not yet 40, the lab he founded at MIT is already the second largest at the

entire institute, and Ed himself has already invented or co-invented a panoply of research

tools that have spread to thousands of other labs and are collectively helping to change

the face of life science research.

These include optogenetics, a method for exploring and triggering neural circuits on a far

more granular level than had ever been possible before.

And also expansion microscopy, a delightfully inverted technique, which, rather than magnifying

the image of a microscopic object, expands the object itself to make it more visible.

Ed will tell us about both of these breakthroughs and much more.

But first, I'd like to welcome everybody to the third season of this podcast.

During my two-month hiatus from publishing new material, I've recorded and produced

several fascinating interviews, some of which will be double episodes, which I'll present

over two consecutive weeks because they just cover so much ground.

...