Yale researchers Dr. Nenad Sestan, professor of neurobiology and psychiatry, and Vincent Pieribone, professor of cellular and molecular physiology and neurobiology, are winners of the 2014 National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) BRAIN Initiative grant.
The award for the two projects combined will total approximately $6 million.
For Sestan, the grant will substantially advance the molecular profiling of the myriad cell types in the human brain and their connections — made possible by a new method of preserving brain tissue to maintain cell integrity and gene expression analysis at the single-cell level.
Sestan obtained his M.D. from the University of Zagreb in 1995 and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1999.
Pieribone, a fellow in the John B. Pierce Laboratory at Yale, will be using his grant money to monitor the electrical activity of neurons using only a camera and a microscope.
Prior to coming to Yale in 1995, Pieribone served as a fellow at the Nobel Institute of Neurophysiology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He completed his postdoctoral work at Rockefeller University.
The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative for 2014 includes more than 100 investigators in 15 states and several countries working to develop new tools and technologies to understand neural circuit function and capture a dynamic view of the brain in action. These new tools and this deeper understanding will ultimately catalyze new treatments and cures for devastating brain disorders and diseases that are estimated by the World Health Organization to affect more than one billion people worldwide.