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The imposing skeleton of a large new facility looms on the north side
of Vassar Street; it is the physical manifestation of MIT’s profound
strategic commitment to leadership in the brain and cognitive sciences.
When complete, the building will unite the McGovern Institute for Brain
Research, the Picower Center for Learning and Memory, and the Department
of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, establishing perhaps the most remarkable
concentration of scientific creativity in the study of the mind and brain
anywhere in the world.
Like most organizations, universities advance sometimes by careful planning and
strategy, and, probably more often, by serendipity and a knack for recognizing
opportunities. Sometimes it takes both.
In 1993, a trustee of a large foundation called to say that they had just completed
funding a major scientific undertaking and were ready to pursue another. If significant
private support became available, he asked, what program would MIT propose?
I posed this question to an informal group of men and women faculty leaders,
representing many disciplines and departments in the Schools of Science and Engineering.
After much discussion, their unanimous and enthusiastic recommendation was this:
We should propose a major thrust
in neuroscience.
In the end, the particular foundation did not mount another grand project at
the time —but the discussion started wheels turning at MIT.
Some important wheels were turning already: our brain and cognitive sciences
faculty wanted to become better integrated into MIT’s core teaching efforts.
The Dean of Science, Bob Birgeneau, had come to see brain research as critical
to the future of science. Many biologists felt neurobiology would be the next
profoundly productive area of life science. Indeed, Professor Susumu Tonegawa,
who had received the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, had turned his attention
to the study of learning and memory.
Broad agreement began to emerge. This was the moment —and MIT was the place —to
launch a
massive new effort in brain science. Why? Because the field was “ripe.” Suddenly,
a host of new tools were ready to answer age-old questions and raise intriguing
new ones. Biology was offering newly detailed ways to study neurons. Rapid advances
in instrumentation —from microarrays of electrical probes to functional
magnetic resonance imaging —were providing unprecedented new ability to
observe some brain activities in real time. Mapping and sequencing of the human
genome and others were providing new ways to track and understand genetic aspects
of learning, memory, and disease. MIT in particular had great strength in linguistics
and computer science that could help shape brain research and modeling. Our mathematicians,
physicists, and computer scientists had learned a lot about analyzing systems
of huge size and complexity, like the brain. Our engineers could both build remarkable
new instrumentation and bring a different philosophy of research and modeling
of
brain processes.
After thoughtful faculty discussion, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
moved into the School of Science. From its inception, the department had had
a distinctive commitment to linking the study of the mind with the study of the
brain, connecting everything from molecular neurobiology to systems and computational
neuroscience to cognitive science and psychology. Ably led by Emilio Bizzi and
later by Mriganka Sur, it was perfectly situated to be the core of this new thrust.
The great potential for brain research had also struck a resonant chord in philanthropists
Pat and Lore McGovern. Pat, who since his youth had had an interest in the brain,
had majored in biology as a student at MIT and had built a publishing empire
grounded in the role of computers. Through discussion with scientists and engineers
at MIT and elsewhere, the McGoverns decided to establish the McGovern Institute
for Brain Research (MIBR) at MIT. Provost Bob Brown and the new Dean of Science,
Bob Silbey, played key roles in shaping the MIBR. Nobel laureate Phil Sharp became
its founding director, bringing not only his scientific stature, but great wisdom
and experience in fostering great science within MIT.
With generous seed funding from the Fairchild Foundation, Professor Tonegawa
had earlier launched the Center for Learning and Memory. As it grew and developed,
we were fortunate to gain the attention of a remarkable philanthropic couple,
Barbara and Jeffry Picower of New York. Although they had no prior connection
to MIT, they knew of our academic excellence and had a long friendship with Norman
Leventhal, a life member of the MIT Corporation. Once they came to grasp the
scientific vision and the great human potential of the center, they contributed
generously to its growth and the cost of building its new facilities.
There is much more to this story already, but most of it remains to be written
by the scientists and engineers who will study and do research in this extraordinary
center of centers in the decades to come. Their work will eventually help explain
many devastating neurological and emotional diseases, and move us toward therapies
for them. They will contribute greatly to improved human communication and learning.
And in the process they will help to lead the great scientific adventure of 21st
century.
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