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Article by Professor Frederick Mendelsohn, AO, MD, PhD, FRACP, Director, Howard Florey Institute
Australia's Neuroscience Centre
The field of neuroscience is changing. It is now multidisciplinary, involving not only physiology, medicine, cognitive neuroscience and molecular biology, but also pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, physics, computer science and mathematics, to cite a few.
New technologies in neuroimaging, genomics, proteomics and cellular and molecular biology require larger teams of scientists so that the necessary skills and equipment are available to investigators at the appropriate time.
Neuroscience now also requires a high degree of collaboration, both across the country and globally, in order for scientists to compete successfully. The new structures developing in Australia aim to promote these partnerships, to enhance sharing of technologies, and to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities provided by the world-wide attention to neuroscience.
Australia’s National Neuroscience Facility (NNF) was established to draw together expertise, skills and infrastructure in order to enhance our neuroscience capability.
Although Australia has a distinguished record in neuroscience, dating from John Eccles’ pioneering work on chemical neurotransmission in the 1950s, most groups have been small and poorly resourced. The NNF has created a series of research technology-based platforms that encompass neuroimaging, neuroinformatics, genomics and proteomics, and cellular neurophysiology.
The National Neuroscience Facility draws together Australia’s considerable neuroscience expertiseIn addition to these platforms, the Integrative Neuroscience Facility offers facilities for behavioural, anatomical and physiological assessment of animal models of neurobiological significance, particularly genetically-modified animals.
Three further platforms provide clinical interfaces – they are: the National Neural Tissue Resource Centre, which provides clinically and neuropathologically characterised tissue for basic studies; Neuroscience Trials Australia, a network of coordinated clinical trial centres for neurological and psychiatric conditions; and Clinical Neurobiology of Psychiatry, to facilitate basic neuroscience studies in psychiatric illnesses.
The NNF also has a commercial focus, providing centralised intellectual property management, commercialisation strategies and management of partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
The Howard Florey Institute is proud to be one of the founding members of the National Neuroscience Facility and we look forward to exciting decades as dramatic advances in neuroscience are translated into improved health for our communities.
