Earlier this week, we discussed the commercialization of neural interface chips at the University of Utah. Meanwhile, at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, researchers are innovating in neuroscience on an even smaller scale. A new, slimmer electrode allows for the more precise studying of individual neurons and promises insight on the workings of the mind based on the interactions between neurons and the brain.
Tags: University of Michigan, Midwest, 2012, Michigan, Ann Arbor, Neuroscience, BioResearch Product Faire Event, MI, UM
The Department of Neuroscience at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine comprises 25 research laboratories with total NIH funding for 2012 of $19.3M. Most labs are on the 9th Floor of the Icahn Medical Institute building on Madison Avenue. Neuroscience faculty may also receive support and engage in collaborative research through MSSM's Friedman Brain Institute, which coordinates brain and spinal cord research from departments and clinics across the medical school campus. In fact, the largest recipient of 2012 NIH funding at MSSM Neuroscience is Brain institute Director Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD.
Tags: Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Northeast, New York, 2012, Neuroscience, MSSM, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Funding, NIH, New York City
With the advances in microscopy and digital imagery today, it's not unusual to find yourself looking at visual representations from the micro-world of the lab that are truly beautiful to behold, both for what they tell us about the science of life and on an aesthetic level as well. Some of the images might be said to qualify as art. In the case of Greg Dunn, PhD Neuroscience 2011 from the University of Pennsylvania, neural art has become his profession, and departments of neuroscience across the US have commissioned his large, metallic and ink visions for their offices, libraries, and reception halls. Influenced by Japanese art, completely self-taught, and still very much the scientist with his subject matter, Dunn's work is quite simply spectacular, and a great deal more than an homage to the neuron.
Tags: Pennsylvania, Northeast, University of Pennsylvania, UPenn, Thomas Jefferson University, 2012, Neuroscience, Philadelphia, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Front Line event, ThomJeff
In a recent round of new funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), two UC Irvine stem cell research labs and their collaborators at other California universities and private labs have been awarded some $37M, of which approximately $12M will go directly to UCI. The two funded projects involve translational research to develop eventual clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease, in the one study, and retinitis pigmentosa in the other. The new awards bring Irvine's total CIRM funding over the years to $96.25 million, most carried out at the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center (right) which opened its cutting-edge facility on campus 2 years ago.
Tags: CA, Stem cell research, University of California Irvine, Southwest, California, 2012, Neuroscience, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Funding, Irvine, CIRM, UC Irvine
Did you know you can be considered a "pot-head" without ever touching, let alone smoking, marijuana? When early neuroscientists went looking for the mental hardware that allowed the body to respond to the active ingredient in the cannabis sativa plant (called THC), they found much more than they were bargaining for. They did in fact identify a perfectly-shaped receptor in the brain. Puzzled at why it would exist (surely the human body was not designed with cannabis-intake in mind?), they went on to discover that the body itself makes a cannabis-like substance, called an endocannabinoid, and that it is part of a complex system regulating appetite, pain, pleasure, and immunity. So, technically, your brain is already wired for pot, and your body produces it all by itself.
Tags: CA, Cannabinoids, University of California Irvine, Southwest, California, 2012, Neuroscience, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, Irvine, UC Irvine
Tags: CA, University of California San Diego, Stem cell research, Southwest, California, 2012, biology research, bio research, biology research scientists, Neuroscience, San Diego, UCSD, La Jolla, Biotechnology Vendor Showcase, Salk, cord blood
University expansion is never uncomplicated, especially in an urban environment where density is high, real estate is ultra-expensive, and development is intensely regulated. Yet new buildings do go up in places like New York City if you have the drive, wealth, and reputation of an institution like Columbia University, which is currently constructing not only new buildings but an entirely new campus to expand its academic and research programs. In addition to the original Morningside Heights location and the Medical School campus in Washington Heights, Columbia has purchased and is building a new campus in the "Manhattanville" neighborhood, stretching from 125th Street to 133rd Street in West Harlem.
Tags: biomedical sciences, Northeast, Biomedical expansion, New research facilities, New York, Columbia University, 2012, Neuroscience, Columbia, BioResearch Product Faire Event, NY, new construction, NYC campus competition
How is it that a prominent Rockefeller University professor and director of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior is sought out by a fashion magazine one month, the New York Magazine the next, and a CBS interview just last week? Dr. Leslie Vosshall studies the mechanism of scent recognition in humans on the one hand, and attraction to humans by mosquitos on the other. We still know so little about smell, and even less about why an insect like the mosquito hones in on one of us more often than another, but the Vosshall Lab is adding insight to the genetic basis of olfactory recognition. Given that mosquitos are a global vector for disease, including right here in the U.S., Vosshall's research aims to find out what it is about a particular one of us that excites the little bug to such raptures. If we know that, perhaps we can intervene productively to keep them at bay. As for the fashion magazine (Elle Canada), they wanted an expert on scent to comment on designers' and retailers' new fad for marketing their products with a scent component.
Tags: Rockefeller University, Northeast, women in science, New York, 2012, genetic engineering, Neuroscience, BioResearch Product Faire Event, NY, New York City
Tags: Georgetown University, Washington DC, Northeast, Multiple Sclerosis, new science wet labs, 2012, Neuroscience, Geotwn, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Biomedical Research Funding, charitable giving
Sometimes sacrifices have to be made in the name of progress. In the case of Utah's just-opened USTAR collaborative research building on the Salt Lake City campus of the University of Utah, no one seems to be lamenting the loss of a golf course that used to lie between the Medical School and an engineering complex. Not when the new 208,000sf, $130M, state-of-the-art Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building is there instead, with all of its bright and shiny promise to drive innovation and economic development in the Beehive State.
Tags: Utah, Utah State University, university of utah, Translational Research, New research facilities, Southwest, Neuroscience, Funding, new construction