New brain research center launched

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen is donating $100 million to establish a new brain research center, he announced Tuesday. The first project for the nonprofit Allen Institute for Brain Science will be the Allen Brain Atlas, a project to map the role of genes in brain development.

 STARTING WITH THE brain of a mouse, the project seeks to discover which genes are active in different regions of the brain and help expand understanding of the human brain, the Allen Institute said in a statement.
       Eventually, the project hopes to define the molecular makeup of brain cells that are responsible for learning, memory, emotions and cognition. That research, which will be publicly available, can help spur biological and medical advances, the Allen Institute said.
       Allen’s startup gift for the initiative boosts to $600 million the total he has donated from a fortune estimated at $20 billion, including $240 million to build the Experience Music Project, a museum about rock music, in Seattle.

       The Allen Brain Atlas is expected to take about five years and will release data starting in the first quarter of 2004.
       “By making the Atlas data accessible in the public domain, and by collaborating with scientific experts around the world, we believe this is a historic opportunity to unite the (human) genome and the brain — and use the data and technology to tackle the challenges of neurodevelopmental, neurodegenerative and psychiatric disease,” Allen said in a statement.

http://msnbc.com/news/967445.asp?0cv=CB20

Poor little micey!

I love brain research, and this is going to be great. Already over 1000 genes are known to play a role in brain development. Knowledge about their functions may help solve many mysteries and cure many ills. (When they're done studying the mouse, they can analyze repug brains before moving up to humans.)

evolved mice! Better just skip the mice!! I honestly don't think one could call themselves religious, Christian, Muslim, Hindu..., if one supports or accepts butching animals for research. Shouldn't their thinking be, 'this is the path God chose for me and I accept it!'?

There have been several great toxicologists including those that have done research on animals upto and including humans. Foremost among them are Maimonadies (c. 1150) who in addition to be being the greatest Jewish biblical scholar of his generation also made long lasting contributions to toxicology that are still pertinent today. Another example is the group of Jewish and Jewish affiliated neuroscientists and neurosurgeons who continued their research and practice through the Holocust using squirrels they found in the wild for research. Only recently have most people assigned the notion of souls to non-humans.

While I have never had to kill an animal directly for my research I respect those who have to do it in order to make this world a better place for us, our pets and our livestock. A ban on animal testing is a wholly unworkable argument.

Also, that isn't to say that there aren't some toxicologist who enjoy and look forward to killing animals. I have met a few and they are bad seeds who usually cannot stay alive in the perilous world of toxicology, and either move on to other fields or end up in therapy. Please also keep in mind that there are some pretty stringent standards in place in this country to limit the use of animal testing to only those areas where it is required.

nt