Admin Core

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Administrative Core Reducing the stigma of mental illness through state-of-the-art neuroscience is the primary mission of the Conte Center at Harvard. The administrative core has a threefold purpose: 1) to facilitate planning, synergy and evaluation of the multidisciplinary science, 2) to support facilities and service resources streamlining joint research efforts, and 3) to promote public outreach and training of the next generation of mental health advocate. During our first phase, the exceptional commitment of a dedicated Outreach Director and science writer, Dr Parizad Bilimoria, working alongside the Center Director established a robust infrastructure and network of partners upon which the current core will build. First, management of the scientific enterprise will include a monthly journal club and progress report in rotation through the four labs, a Center Retreat including summer student interns, and a strong Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) to convene annually. Our original SAB comprised of Drs Hyman, Sudhof, Yuste, Greenberg and Ferguson-Smith, will be reconfigured to fit the new Center direction to include female expertise in stem cell and marmoset neurobiology. Second, access to information technology (formerly a core of the Center) as well as standardized mouse behavioral phenotyping at the Neurodevelopmental Behavioral Core facility in Boston Children's Hospital will be managed on a fee-for- service basis through the administrative core. This will prioritize our intense sequencing and connectomic demands at the Harvard University Research Computing facility, and provide consistent cohorts of well- characterized animals for subsequent anatomical and physiological analyses. By serving multiple laboratories in the Center, the administrative core will foster synergy and increase efficiency. Third, our Outreach program will be strengthened and expanded. Already dubbed “a model for how all Conte Centers (and even research universities generally) should operate” by our NIH site visit, our highly visible presence on the Harvard campus and on-line (conte.harvard.edu) will be maintained. Innovative programs such as the Wintersession on mental health careers for undergraduates, summer High School Teacher Training Workshop, public lecture series at the Boston Museum of Science and minority summer internships in Center laboratories will be expanded. Monthly public Colloquium series lectures, “Team Conte” participation in several walks for mental illness, Brain Awareness Week events and Middle School visits will be continued. Our activities to enhance science literacy are supported by a rich network of collaborating institutions including the Department of Molecular Cellular Biology Life Sciences Outreach, the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, Boston Museum of Science and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). One initiative which we aim to spearhead in the second phase is a national gathering of Conte Centers to share their science, ethical concerns and outreach experiences. Our trainees will thus form a pipeline of future investigators at the cutting edge of neuroscience research, who are able to address a broad audience about the implications of their work with empathy and care.