Profile of Foundation Donor
The W. M. Keck Foundation
Awards $500,000 for Instrumentation for a Genomics Core Laboratory in the Neuroscience Institute to Morehouse School of Medicine and Peter R. MacLeish, Ph.D., Holder, George H.W. Bush and Barbara P. Bush Chair in Neuroscience; Professor and Chairman and Director, Neuroscience Institute

In December 2003, The W. M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles, California, announced its selection of Dr. Peter R. MacLeish to receive a $500,000 award to fund instrumentation for a Genomics Core Laboratory for the Neuroscience Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine. This grant will provide essential enhancement to a genomics core facility that will allow Neuroscience Institute investigators to move their research to the next level of competitiveness.

The equipment and staff supported by this grant will transform the existing core facility to work synergistically with support provided through the National Institutes of Health R01 program and cooperative agreement funding from the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, a National Science Foundation program. Funding will enhance the capacity of investigators to perform cutting-edge studies of gene regulation in a number of neurobiological settings.

Since 1996, Dr. MacLeish has served as director of the Morehouse School of Medicine Neuroscience Institute and George H.W. Bush and Barbara P. Bush Chair. Dr. MacLeish and his research colleagues in the Neuroscience Institute will conduct studies into the functional organization of the nervous system in health and disease.

The spectacular advances in molecular genetics and molecular biology, coupled with the enormous progress of genome projects, have provided biologists with a powerful set of research tools with which to study changes in programs of gene expression that accompany normal and disease processes. Neurobiologists, in particular, are the beneficiaries of these powerful advances since a substantial number of genes are expressed in the nervous system. To address this promise of understanding the genetic programs that drive brain development and the expression of fundamental brain properties, the Morehouse School of Medicine Neuroscience Institute proposes to establish an enhanced genomics core facility to accomplish the following aims:

1) to provide rapid, accurate, and state-of-the-art microarray technology to the Neuroscience Institute;

2) to train investigators and their staff to perform microarray experiments; and

3) to provide bioinformatics support for interpretation of microarray gene expression profile analysis. Participating in the leadership of the scientific and research initiatives of the Neuroscience Institute are members of the External Advisory Committee comprised of the nation’s thought leaders in neuroscience. Torsten Wiesel, Nobel Laureate, and President Emeritus of Rockefeller University, is Chairman of the Neuroscience Institute’s External Advisory Committee.

As the first neuroscience program at a historically black institution, Morehouse School of Medicine’s Neuroscience Institute has demonstrated its ability to provide leadership in a wide range of initiatives. First, it has provided a state-of-the-art research infrastructure. Second, it has demonstrated its ability to recruit neuroscientists and to create a supportive environment that nurtures and trains them to become R01 researchers and active participants in neuroscience.

A Small Medical School with Outrageous Ambition 13 In addition, the Neuroscience Institute has developed the ability to sustain broad coalitions among leaders of the neuroscience community and governmental organizations to focus on one of the nation’s most intractable workforce disparities—under-representation of minority-group biomedical scientists in the research workforce. Finally, it has established interdisciplinary alliances within Morehouse School of Medicine and with regional private and governmental agencies to redress issues of health disparities.

The W. M. Keck Foundation’s priority interests have been, and remain, science, engineering, and biomedical research. Its founder, W. M. Keck, established the foundation in 1954. Reflecting his life as a pioneer, innovator, and risk-taker, the Foundation seeks out research that opens new directions and could lead to breakthrough discoveries and the development of new technologies.

The W. M. Keck Foundation’s continuing commitment to these fields reflects its belief that by nurturing the minds and talents of exceptional people and in strengthening their academic and research environments, the Foundation is making critical investments in the future of our society. This is the first award that the W. M. Keck Foundation has made to the Morehouse School of Medicine.

The Research Project Grant (R01) is the original and historically oldest grant mechanism used by National Institutes of Health. The Research Project Grant is an award made to support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing the investigator’s specific interest and competencies, based on the mission of the NIH. The R01 provides support for health-related research and development based on the mission of the NIH. The NIH awards R01 grants to organizations of all types (universities, colleges, small businesses, for-profit, foreign and domestic, faith-based) and the R01 mechanism allows an investigator to define the scientific focus or objective of the research based on a particular area of interest and competence. Although the Principal Investigator writes the grant application and is responsible for conducting the research, the applicant is the research organization.