Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience
Mission Statement
The NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) for Structural and Functional Neuroscience at The University of Montana was established through the Institutional Development Award program of the National Center for Research Resources. The research mission of the Center is to utilize approaches at the interface of molecular pharmacology, synthetic chemistry, physiology, and molecular biology to advance our understanding of the central nervous system, particularly as related to protein structure and function, signaling, transport, and pathogenesis. The Center is also intended to serve as a core around which to develop infrastructure that benefits a much broader range of basic, clinical and translational biomedical research efforts in Montana. The Center is directed by Michael Kavanaugh, Ph.D., and Center investigators include faculty from departments including Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics, and the Division of Biological Sciences at The University of Montana-Missoula. In addition to the Missoula campus, Center investigators are also located at the McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls and at Montana State University. CSFN is Supported by NIH Grant Number P20 RR015583 from the COBRE Program of the National Center for Research Resources.
History
Ten years ago, the University of Montana (UM) and the School of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences made a commitment to build a competitive neuroscience research program as part of the school's academic mission. It was recognized that the best way to build such a program, as well as to encourage the necessary culture change on campus to support it, was to organize this growth around multidisciplinary research themes that would involve and benefit from the University's various basic science units. In turn, the program was designed to broadly benefit many different departments, Colleges, and regional institutions by enhancing research resources and critical mass. The strength of this approach had been demonstrated in the mid-90's when UM successfully competed for two NCRR-IDeA awards that were the predecessors of the COBRE grants. Both of these projects were multidisciplinary and included investigators from UM and Montana State University (MSU). One of these projects, organized around central nervous system protein structure and function, was directed by R. Bridges (past COBRE PI and current Chair of Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences) and involved five investigators at UM. The fact that the University had made the necessary commitments and had already started on the pathway to develop its biomedical research programs put it in an ideal position to take advantage of the COBRE program and utilize its resources for maximum impact. The NIH-COBRE Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience began its first phase in 2000.
The broad aim of the COBRE Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience (CSFN) has been to provide a mechanism to advance neuroscience research in Montana through infrastructure development, recruitment, mentoring, and support of neuroscientists at the University of Montana and regional institutions including Montana State University and the McLaughlin Research Institute. The impact of the COBRE on the research infrastructure and productivity in Montana has been significant and wide-ranging. The Center has evolved scientifically and programmatically over the past ten-year period and grown from 5 investigators to its current level of 23 on the UM Campus. The CSFN has not only fostered an increase in the critical mass of investigators, but it has also spearheaded significant infrastructure growth, including development of significant new research space and core facilities. Developing these resources was critical for stimulating nationally competitive biomedical research, which in turn has significantly boosted success in garnering extramural funding.
Dramatic progress was made in the first award period of the COBRE CSFN. Advances were made in each of the milestone areas targeted in the original proposal in 2000, including: increasing critical mass, enhancing competitiveness for RO1s, and building an environment to foster the continued growth of biomedical research. The following 5 year period built further on those gains. Included in the major milestones reached by the Neuroscience Center are recruitment of more than 10 new faculty investigators, construction of a new 60,000 square-foot research addition shared with the COBRE Center for Environmental Health Sciences (CEHS), implementation of a new Neuroscience Ph.D. program, and development of six new Core facilities. Increased competitiveness for external research funding was also notable. Excluding the COBRE award itself, annual extramural support for Neuroscience Center investigators at the University of Montana has increased from less than $1M at the beginning of the award period to the current level of $5.6M.
While it is difficult to quantitatively determine the influence that the COBRE programs and faculty have had on the research environment since the CSFN began in 2000, investigators have published more than 250 journal articles during their tenure with the Center. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that in the ten year period from 1998 to 2008, NIH funding increased 22-fold at UM (from $0.75M to $16.6M), and the contribution of NIH funding to the total research budget of the University went from 2.8% to 26%. CSFN faculty have submitted over 150 proposals to NIH and other funding agencies over the past 5 years. 48 of these were awarded, and 17 are currently pending ($109M in requested direct costs, $22M awarded). Currently, Center investigators hold more than 25 active grants including 9 R01 awards.