Robert Desimone, Ph.D.Director, McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchDoris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience
[email protected]://mcgovern.mit.edu
• Founded in 2000 by Patrick & Lore Harp McGovern• Mission is to understand brain and to discover ways to prevent and treat brain
disorders• 19 faculty members and >200 researchers• Faculty include Nobel Laureate and 5 members of National Academy of Sciences• Part of MIT neuroscience complex, among the largest in the world• Many collaborations within and outside MIT, including Picower Institute, Broad
Institute, Harvard-affiliated hospitals, and many other institutions worldwide
Our founders: Patrick & Lore Harp McGovern
McGovern Institute Faculty Members
Our mission: Understanding the brain in health and disease
Disorders once thought to be distinct….
……are now known to overlap
President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative
White House, April 2, 2013
A technology revolution: genome sequencing
Tracing connections in the living human brain
Zeynep Saygin (MIT)
Imaging human brain activity during social interactions
Rebecca Saxe (MIT)
CLARITY: a new method for visualizing the brain
Kwanghun Chung (MIT)
Optogenetics: controlling brain activity with light
Ed Boyden (MIT)
A unique environment: MIT and Kendall Square
MIT
What’s the road map?
NHGRI
Mice are the most common genetic model….
• Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity
• More talkative than usual
• Flight of ideas
• Distractibility
• Feelings of worthlessness
• Recurrent thoughts of death
…but it is not easy to model brain disorders in mice
CRISPR: a new technology for genome editing
Feng Zhang (MIT and Broad Institute)
Jiahao Sha, Nanjing Medical University (Cell, Jan 2014)
CRISPR used to make targeted gene mutations in monkeys
RIKEN
The common marmoset as a genetic model for brain research
A brain-inspired computer vision system
Tomaso Poggio; Center for Brains, Minds & Machines (MIT)
Italian Institute of Technology
A learning humanoid robot
Understanding ourselves and our place in the universe
Robert Desimone, Ph.D.Director, McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchDoris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience
[email protected]://mcgovern.mit.edu