Director's Messages

We are so looking forward to the fifth annual Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative Investigators Meeting, when approximately 1,500 scientists from many disciplines will generate this hum from April 11-13, 2019 at the Wardman Park Marriott in Washington, DC.

This week, we celebrate the most mysterious and fascinating organ in the body—the brain—by participating in Brain Awareness Week, March 11-17. The goal of Brain Awareness Week is to increase public awareness of the brain and the progress and benefits of brain research.

I have written previously about NINDS’s leading role in the Undiagnosed Disease Network (UDN), a research program supported by the NIH Common Fund. By bringing together clinical and research experts from across the country, the UDN applies a multidisciplinary model to evaluate the most challenging medical cases and to identify the biological characteristics of newly discovered diseases.

In June 2018, NIH rolled out the Research Plan for the NIH HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-termSM) Initiative, a trans-agency effort to speed scientific solutions to the opioid crisis. We are now excited to announce the publication of over 30 Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) for fiscal year 2019.

As the US population ages, the burden of illness due to dementia continues to grow at an alarming rate. 

Last week, the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, a group of 14 NIH Institutes, Centers and Offices (ICOs) that support research on the nervous system, released a Request for Information on the Proposed Funding Priorities for Neuroscience Research and Input on Cross-Cutting Opportunities. 

In our last two updates to highlight NINDS contributions to therapies for neurological disorders, we focused on a recombinant clot-busting protein for acute stroke, enzyme replacement therapies for lysosomal storage disorders, and an RNA-targeting treatment for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

At the end of January, we launched a new feature on our website that shows how NINDS and the research we support contribute to the discovery and development of treatments for neurological disorders.

In last month’s NINDS Director’s message I introduced the planning stages of the NIH HEAL Initiative, Helping to End Addiction Long-term. After months of planning, the HEAL Initiative is being rolled out today in a Viewpoint published in the Journal of the American Medical Association

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