State-of-the-Art Facility Will Be Home to 16 Global Leaders in Neuroscience
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE via COLLEGIATE PRESSWIRE)--May 14, 2003--Historic groundbreaking ceremonies for the McGovern Institute will be held on the MIT campus on Monday, May 19th at 11:30 am. The 85,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art research facility will house the laboratories of 16 global leaders in neuroscience.
''Creation of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research will launch one of the most profound and important scientific ventures of this century, ''said MIT President Charles M. Vest, ''and will be a cornerstone of MIT`s scientific contributions in the decades ahead. We are deeply grateful to Pat and Lore Harp McGovern for their visionary commitment to MIT and for their extraordinary leadership as philanthropists.''
Speakers at the groundbreaking ceremonies will include MIT President Charles M. Vest; McGovern Institute Director and Nobel Laureate Dr. Philip A. Sharp, Cambridge Vice-Mayor Henrietta Davis; MIT Dean of the School of Science Robert Silbey; and Institute benefactors Patrick J. McGovern (International Data Group founder and chairman, and a 1959 MIT graduate) and his wife, entrepreneur Lore Harp McGovern. The McGoverns established the Institute in February, 2000 through a gift which is expected to total $350 million over the next 20 years, one of the largest university gifts in history.
''Pat and Lore McGovern have shown extraordinary leadership and generosity in establishing the McGovern Institute, with its focus on understanding higher brain functions in humans, ''said Dr. Sharp. ''This institute will lead MIT neuroscience into an exciting future of discoveries that will change our concepts of science and other cultural endeavors.''
The McGovern Institute`s 85,000-square-foot building will be located within the brain and cognitive sciences project, a 376,000 square-foot structure that also includes facilities for the Picower Center for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Each of the three entities will surround a central atrium that will help facilitate communication among faculty and students. The complex is scheduled to be completed in early 2005.
The architectural design for the entire project is a collaborative effort of Boston-based Goody, Clancy & Associates and Charles Correa Associates of Bombay, India.
''The beautiful new building, with its mixture of bold limestone facade and plate glass, will be the working place of 16 investigators and numerous students and fellows,'' Sharp said. ''All of us thank the McGoverns and MIT for creating the future through the building of the structure.''
The McGovern Institute is a distinguished research and teaching facility, committed to advancing human understanding and communication. It conducts integrated research in neuroscience, molecular neurobiology, cognitive science, computation and related areas. The principal investigators at the McGovern Institute and their research concentrations are:
Phillip A. Sharp, Director, McGovern Institute; Institute Professor, MIT; Nobel Laureate: Dr. Sharp studies the control of gene expression, which affects all major activities at all levels and stages of development in the brain.
Emilio Bizzi, Investigator, McGovern Institute; Institute Professor, MIT; Secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Dr. Bizzi examines how the central nervous system creates and updates its internal representations, enabling movement under changing environmental conditions.
Martha Constantine-Paton, Investigator, McGovern Institute; Professor of Biology and Brain and Cognitive Sciences: Dr. Constantine-Paton examines activities that induce normal and abnormal synaptic development and studies their mechanisms of action.
James DiCarlo, Investigator, McGovern Institute; Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; 2002 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences; Sloan Research Fellow: Dr. DiCarlo researches how the brain extracts object identity regardless of object position, size, view, illumination, and the presence of distractions.
Michale Fee, Investigator, McGovern Institute; Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences: Dr. Fee studies the cellular and circuit bases for the generation and learning of temporal sequences in the brain, with a focus on songbird vocalizations.
Ann Graybiel, Investigator, McGovern Institute; Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Neuroscience; member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; 2002 winner of the National Medal Of Science and the Robert S. Dow Neuroscience Award: Dr. Graybiel focuses her research on normal and abnormal behaviors associated with the basal ganglia, and their relationships to dopamine regulation.
H. Robert Horvitz, Investigator, McGovern Institute; David H. Koch Professor of Biology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Department of Biology; a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences; and a recipient of the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize from the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation; and 2002 Nobel Prize recipient: Dr. Horvitz studies how genes control the development and functioning of the
nervous system.
Nancy Kanwisher, Investigator, McGovern Institute; Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience; recipient of the National Academy of Sciences` Troland Research Award: Dr. Kanwisher studies human visual perception and cognition, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, magnetoencephalography, and behavioral measurements.
Christopher Moore, Investigator, McGovern Institute; Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences: Dr. Moore studies the brain`s role in touch sensation, ranging from how the human body translates tactile sensations to how the brain interprets these signals.
Tomaso Poggio, Investigator, McGovern Institute; Eugene McDermott Professor in the Brain Sciences and Human Behavior; Foreign Member of the Italian Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Dr. Poggio investigates learning theories that can be applied to both understand the brain and build intelligent machines.
For more information on the Groundbreaking Ceremony and new facility, go to https://mit.edu/evolving/projects/cogsci. For more information about the McGovern Institute`s mission and members, go to https://mit.edu/mcgovern.
|
