Balazs has a physics degree from Imperial College London and earned a PhD in computational neuroscience from the University of Edinburgh. After graduating, he spent a few years as a biomedical software engineer at the Icahn Institute of Genetics in New York to create tools for whole cell modeling. He became involved with psychedelics science in 2016, when he collaborated with the Global Drug Survey to show that neuroimaging studies consistently overestimate the potential harm of recreational MDMA use.He invented 'self-blinding', a novel methodology that enables self-experimenters to incorporate placebo control into their experimentation without clinical supervision. Using this methodology, Balazs designed and lead the self-blinding microdose study, the largest placebo-controlled study on psychedelics microdosing to-date. Balazs currently researches the intersection of placebo effect and psychedelic medicine, while also continuing to setup new citizen science initiatives using his self-blinding methodology.