The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s medical research agency — making important discoveries that improve health and save lives.
The grant from the BRAIN Initiative aims to enhance the development and scaling of technologies for brain research, focusing on viral, non-viral, transgenic, and gene regulatory element screening technologies. It seeks to create and provide reagent resources that facilitate access to brain cell types, leveraging gene transfer, gene regulation, genome engineering, activity sensor/effector, and atlasing technologies. These efforts are to be applicable not only in genetically tractable systems but also in less tractable ones, such as primates and human tissues. The goal is to enable precise targeting of specific brain cell types which could have implications for treating human disorders by allowing for precise gene editing to correct mutations. This initiative encourages the development and validation of reagents informed by a deep understanding of neural gene transfer and regulation mechanisms.