President Obama Speaks on the BRAIN Initiative and American
Innovation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJuxLDRsSQc
President Obama unveils a bold new research initiative
designed to revolutionize our understanding of the human brain, and discusses
the importance of investing in American innovation to create jobs and
strengthen our economy. April 2, 2013.
Open for Questions: The BRAIN Initiative
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNLjJi7ZSl4
Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Technology and Innovation in
the Office of Science and Technology Policy; Dr. Francis Collins, Director of
National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Director of the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency answer questions about the BRAIN Initiative,
which aims to help researchers find new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent
brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and traumatic brain
injury. April 2, 2013.
BRAIN Initiative Challenges Researchers to Unlock Mysteries
of Human Mind
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/02/brain-initiative-challenges-researchers-unlock-mysteries-human-mind
Note: Want to learn more about the BRAIN Initiative? Watch
Tom Kalil, Innovation Advisor; Dr. Francis Collins, Director of National
Institutes of Health; and Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Director of the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) discuss the new research effort in an Open for
Questions session.
Today at the White House, President Obama unveiled the
“BRAIN” Initiative—a bold new research effort to revolutionize our
understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and
cure brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and
traumatic brain injury.
The BRAIN Initiative — short for Brain Research through
Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies — builds on the President’s State of the
Union call for historic investments in research and development to fuel the innovation,
job creation, and economic growth that together create a thriving middle class.
The Initiative promises to accelerate the invention of new
technologies that will help researchers produce real-time pictures of complex
neural circuits and visualize the rapid-fire interactions of cells that occur
at the speed of thought. Such cutting-edge capabilities, applied to both simple
and complex systems, will open new doors to understanding how brain function is
linked to human behavior and learning, and the mechanisms of brain disease. In
his remarks this morning, the President highlighted the BRAIN Initiative as one
of the Administration’s “Grand Challenges” – ambitious but achievable goals
that require advances in science and technology to accomplish. The President
called on companies, research universities, foundations, and philanthropies to
join with him in identifying and pursuing additional Grand Challenges of the
21st century—challenges that can create the jobs and industries of the future
while improving lives.
In addition to fueling invaluable advances that improve
lives, the pursuit of Grand Challenges can create the jobs and industries of
the future.
That’s what happened when the Nation took on the Grand
Challenge of the Human Genome Project. As a result of that daunting but focused
endeavor, the cost of sequencing a single human genome has declined from $100
million to $7,000, opening the door to personalized medicine.
Like sequencing the human genome, President Obama’s BRAIN
Initiative provides an opportunity to rally innovative capacities in every
corner of the Nation and leverage the diverse skills, tools, and resources from
a variety of sectors to have a lasting positive impact on lives, the economy,
and our national security.
That’s why we’re so excited that critical partners from
within and outside government are already stepping up to the President’s BRAIN
Initiative Grand Challenge.
The BRAIN Initiative is launching with approximately $100
million in funding for research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Science
Foundation (NSF) in the President’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget.
Foundations and private research institutions are also
investing in the neuroscience that will advance the BRAIN Initiative. The Allen Institute for Brain Science, for
example, will spend at least $60 million annually to support projects related
to this initiative. The Kavli Foundation
plans to support BRAIN Initiative-related activities with approximately $4
million dollars per year over the next ten years. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the
Salk Institute for Biological Studies will also dedicate research funding for
projects that support the BRAIN Initiative.
This is just the beginning. We hope many more foundations,
Federal agencies, philanthropists, non-profits, companies, and others will step
up to the President’s call to action.