CISION: The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation Awards $7.5 Million To Study Brain Cell Growth And Development

April 30, 2016

SEATTLE, April 30, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation announced today the award of Allen Distinguished Investigator (ADI) grants to six groups of researchers with projects at the frontier of one of the most challenging roadblocks in neuroscience: growing mature human brain cells in the laboratory. The projects are funded at a total of $7.5 million over three years. 

"This new cohort of Allen Distinguished Investigators and their research is especially significant because the field of neuronal maturation is at the leading edge of bioscience," says Tom Skalak, Ph.D., Executive Director for Science and Technology for the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. "The awardees' broad talents and areas of expertise are what we need to explore this beckoning undiscovered territory."

Studying human brain cells is one of the most promising ways to better understand the function of the healthy brain as well as provide insight into the development of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. "Despite this potential, progress has been limited by a major gap in our scientific understanding," comments Skalak. It typically takes more than a year to develop cells that come close to resembling fully mature neurons, and even then, yield is often low and full maturity has not been reached.

The six projects chosen to receive ADI grants in the field of neuronal maturation all tackle one or more of these challenges in bold new ways, including using innovative technologies and novel points of view.

Research in neuronal maturation is fundamental to many aspects of neuroscience research, including the work being conducted at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. The projects chosen for ADI grants complement the work at the Allen Institute and neuroscience as a whole.

"Our work at the Allen Institute for Brain Science has revealed that the field of neuronal maturation is in great need of exploration," says Christof Koch, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. "This inspiring cohort of national innovators identified by the Foundation will make important advances using their own ideas, and we expect the resulting insights will in turn accelerate the Institute's work to understand neural function and human cognition itself."

The Foundation seeks to open new frontiers in science, and the ADI program supports early-stage research with the potential to re-invent entire fields. Successful neuronal maturation would have widespread impact on the field of neuroscience, including changing how researchers study the healthy brain as well as how they seek treatments for diseases like autism, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

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Jeffrey MacklisHarvard University ($1.5 million)

Macklis' project has four proposed aims. The first is to develop a molecular-DNA "flight data recorder" inserted into individual cells, both to observe the rare cells that undergo remarkably appropriate partial maturation, and those that becomes stalled, confused, delayed, or immature. The second aim builds molecular timekeepers in order to better understand maturation time for individual cells. The third aim develops entirely novel synthetic biology technology to discover biological interactions during development that neurons may require to sequence through maturation "checkpoints." The fourth aim develops first-in-field analysis of neuronal diversity and maturation at a deep level, in order to understand the basis of brain wiring and circuitry. 

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The full article on CISION can be found here.