Imagine if we could under­stand the lan­guage two neu­rons use to com­mu­ni­cate. We might learn some­thing about how thoughts and con­scious­ness are formed. At the very least, our improved under­standing of neuron com­mu­ni­ca­tion would help biol­o­gists study the brain with more pre­ci­sion than ever before.

Heather Clark, an asso­ciate pro­fessor of phar­ma­ceu­tical sci­ences at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity, has received a $300,000 Young Fac­ulty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to explore neural cell com­mu­ni­ca­tion using her exper­tise in nanosensors.