Salk Institute for Biological Studies NINDS Center Core Grant

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The Salk Institute for Biological Studies requests support for a new Center Core Grant for Neuroscience Research. Since the founding of the Institute in the 1960s, neuroscience has grown to be the major research emphasis of Salk faculty. Over half of the faculty, heading 32 Institute laboratories, are currently engaged primarily in neuroscience research. The major research interests of the faculty are grouped into several broad programmatic areas: Clinical and Translational Neuroscience, Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, Neural Development, and Systems Neuroscience. Seventeen research projects, supporting twelve faculty as principal investigators, are currently funded by NINDS. These awards include nine independent R01/R37 research projects, an active RC2 (Grand Opportunities) award, a K99, and a P01 program project. Nine Salk investigators are either current or past Jacob Javits awardees. The specific aim of this Center Core Grant application is to provide support for key resources that are needed for current and future NINDS-funded research projects. Three new core resources are proposed: 1) a Genome Manipulation Core, providing services to produce gene-targeted ES cell lines for in vivo and in vitro models for functional analysis of genes and neurologic disease, 2) an Imaging Core, focusing on dedicated support for TEM ultrastructural imaging and fostering integrated structural analysis across multiple advanced imaging platforms, and 3) a Behavior Core, providing both dedicated expertise in small animal behavioral analysis and consistency across different testing modalities. The management of these cores will focus first on providing support for the eight Salk Institute investigators with current NINDS-funded R01/R37 research programs. Any excess core capacity will be made available to other investigators at The Salk Institute who have research projects that are consistent with the mission of NINDS. This infrastructure program will provide core services that will facilitate application of continually evolving advanced technologies to the NINDS-funded research projects at the Salk Institute, and leverage existing funding as a resource multiplier to better advance these projects in addressing important problems relevant to the NINDS mission.