Washington University Center for Translational Neuroscience

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The overarching goal of this grant, entitled "Washington University Center for Translational Neuroscience- WUCTN" is to support centralized resources, facilities, and expertise shared by neuroscience investigators at Washington University in order to facilitate discovery of fundamental mechanisms of disorders of the nervous system and to translate this understanding into treatments and cures. Core A, Administration, will organize and facilitate interaction among the 6 other cores: Core B, Biospecimen and Clinical Data Acquisition; Core C, Molecular Analysis; Core D, Viral Vectors; Core E, Optical imaging; Core F, Functional Assessment; and Core G, Informatics. By pooling and organizing resources and expertise, the enormous breadth and collaborative spirit of the Washington University neuroscience community that spans virtually every department, can take advantage of economies of scale, confront challenges too large for individual investigators, and develop an infrastructure that will serve the user group of over 120 investigators. The WUCTN will capitalize on the development and resources of 3 new initiatives at Washington University: Biomed 21, the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders, and the Neurological Clinical Research Unit as well as utilize the support and expertise of the long established McDonnell Neuroscience Centers to assist in supporting the personnel and infrastructure being requested in this proposal. In addition, we will work together with several ongoing NIH funded centers at Washington University including the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, the Conte Center for research on the neurobiology of schizophrenia, and the NINDS Center Core for Brain Imaging to add "extra value" to this proposal. The increasing complexity and cost of the technologies required to characterize biological phenomenon are often beyond the expertise and resources of an individual laboratory. This makes it very difficult to establish and validate key new discoveries in a cohesive, timely, and cost-efficient manner without access to facilities specializing in these enabling technologies. The proposed Core infrastructure, situated within the collaborative environment that exists between the basic neurosciences and the neurobiology of disease community at Washington University, will help catalyze a strong translational effort to convert basic discoveries into diagnostic and therapeutic advances. This will be manifested as: 1) greater efficiency in utilizing enabling technologies by individual investigators; 2) greater collaboration aimed at pre-clinical development of potential therapeutic strategies; and, 3) faster translation of initial discoveries into useful treatments for disorders of the nervous system.