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The establishment of the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) in late October 2003 was the result of an amazing confluence of ideas and foresight by three great community leaders, The University of Queensland’s former Vice-Chancellor, John Hay, the founder of Atlantic Philanthropies, Chuck Feeney, and the former Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie. They provided the impetus and the resources for a $63 million state-of-the-art building which was completed in late 2007, giving me the unprecedented opportunity to recruit a faculty of world-class neuroscientists. It all began a year earlier, in 2002, when I relocated my group from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, where I was head of the Division of Neurobiology and Development, to lay the foundations for a new Institute as the inaugural Chair in Molecular Neuroscience. Although the funding for such an Institute was uncertain at the time, the Vice-Chancellor’s clear and steadfast vision that neuroscience was an area of research in which UQ should excel and become an international leader was compelling. He quickly engaged the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Queensland Government in this concept, as a result of which QBI was born. Today, QBI takes its place alongside the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) and the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), as part of the revolution that occurred in the biosciences at The University of Queensland under the leadership of Professor John Hay. QBI was established with the specific aim of discovering the fundamental mechanisms that control higher brain functions, such as learning and memory, as this is the last scientific frontier to be conquered if we are to fully understand human behaviour and that allusive human characteristic of consciousness or self awareness. Moreover, I believe that such an understanding will lead to revolutionary new therapeutics to combat the neurological and mental illnesses that ever-increasingly affect both our young and aged population. As a step towards achieving these goals, I am delighted to report that, since its establishment, QBI has attracted some of the best neuroscientists from within Australia and from overseas. Professor Pankaj Sah joined the Institute shortly before its formal inception and has been enormously important in its growth and success over the first 1000 days. In recognition of his pivotal role and his outstanding scientific leadership, he has been appointed as the Deputy Director for Research. We have also enticed exceptional young scientists such as Associate Professor Linda Richards and Dr Robyn Wallace back to Australia from the USA, as well as attracting several distinguished international scientists such as Associate Professor Geoffrey Goodhill, Dr Massimo Hilliard and Associate Professor Bruno van Swinderen. Since arriving at QBI, these faculty members have established new groups and have proven highly successful in attracting both Australian and international funding. We have been joined by the recipient of the 2006 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science, Professor Mandyam Srinivasan, who heads QBI’s visual and sensory neuroscience research team, and Professor Jason Mattingley, who heads QBI’s cognitive neuroscience team. Although working in widely different animal models and using a range of different techniques, all these scientific groups focus on understanding important mechanisms that regulate the development of a functional brain. QBI’s research primarily focuses on the mechanisms that regulate brain plasticity – the ability of the brain to change neuronal connections and even its nerve cell complement. This is because we increasingly believe that this is the very basis of how functions such as learning and memory are regulated, and how information is stored. Thus, understanding the regulation of these processes offers the promise not only of promoting life-long cognitive health, even in the older population, but also, because of the plastic nature of the system, of developing a new generation of therapeutics to treat the avalanche of neurological and mental ill-health that accounts for almost half of the disease burden of our community. Strong research links with China QBI has been developing strong links with the neuroscience community in China over the past four-to-five years. A recent visit to the Institute of Biophysics (IBP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (in Beijing) underscored a growing research bond between our two countries. In February 2006, the Minister of Science and Technology from the People’s Republic of China, Professor Xu Guanhua, headed a large delegation to UQ, which initiated an ongoing series of talks regarding the importance of fundamental neuroscience to both countries. China, with its massive population, faces the daunting challenge of maintaining the neurological health of its people. As in Australia, Chinese neuroscientists are doing all they can to counteract the debilitating and widespread effects of conditions such as ageing dementia and stroke. Since 2006, several senior QBI scientists have visited China to discuss collaborations and of course the latest discoveries in neuroscience. A visit to the Institute of Biophysics in April was another important step in step in what I anticipate will become another valuable international research alliance for QBI. Closer to home, QBI has recently appointed three new faculty members to build on the institute’s already strong research team. Dr Timothy Bredy from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences (UCLA), will be joining QBI in August 2009. Associate Professor Stephen Williams, from the Neurobiology Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (University of Cambridge) will be starting in January 2010. And Professor Bryan Mowry, Executive Director, Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research at the Park and Director of its Genetics Research program, will be establishing a research group within QBI. As both clinician and researcher his expertise will provide us with a wonderful opportunity to further develop in the area of molecular genetics. I anticipate him joining us in June 2009. Looking ahead, QBI will host a major spinal cord conference in September. The Frontiers in Spinal Cord Research conference will bring together world experts in the field of spinal cord injury and repair research. Recently, great advances have been made in the science of spinal cord repair (including work on the molecule, known as EPHA4) and, increasingly, such advances are finding their way from the laboratory to the clinic. This promising aspect will be a key focus of the conference.
(updated 16 June 2009)
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