President Barack Obama has unveiled an ambitious $100 million project to map the human brain and unlock its mysteries as part of the quest for new ways to treat, cure and even prevent brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, autism, stroke and traumatic brain injuries.
“Ideas are what power our economy. It’s what sets us apart. It’s what America has been all about,” said Obama as he dwelt on the project that is reckoned to be among his bold initiatives in his upcoming budget proposals for fiscal 2014, beginning October 1 this year.
Called BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative, the project will involve top American public and private institutions.
“This initiative is one of the Administration’s “Grand Challenges” — ambitious but achievable goals that require advances in science and technology,” the White House said even as the president called on companies, research universities, foundations, and philanthropists to partner with federal agencies in the grand effort.
Making it clear that he wants the US to be ahead of the curve in research and jobs rather than an emerging China or India, Obama commented: “I don’t want the next job-creating discoveries to happen in China or India or Germany. I want them to happen right here, in the United States of America.”
“We have been a nation of dreamers and risk-takers; people who see what nobody else sees sooner than anybody else sees it. We do innovation better than anybody else — and that makes our economy stronger. When we invest in the best ideas before anybody else does, our businesses and our workers can make the best products and deliver the best services before anybody else,” he said.
The BRAIN Initiative will accelerate the development and application of new technologies that will enable researchers to produce dynamic pictures of the brain that show how individual brain cells and complex neural circuits interact at the speed of thought, said a White House fact sheet, noting: “These technologies will open new doors to explore how the brain records, processes, uses, stores, and retrieves vast quantities of information, and shed light on the complex links between brain function and behaviour.”
The National Institutes of Health, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation will spearhead the research effort along with research universities the private sector.
Investments don’t always pay off, but when they do, they change lives of people in ways no one could have imagined, Obama said, citing how computer chips, GPS technology, the Internet all grew out of government investments in basic research.
Sometimes, some of the best products and services spin off completely from unintended research that nobody expected to have certain applications, Obama said, pointing to how the founders of Google got their early support from the National Science Foundation or how the Apollo moon project also led the way to CAT scans.
“Every dollar we spent to map the human genome has returned $140 to our economy -- $1 of investment, $140 in return,” he said.
The BRAIN Initiative’s goals may be ambitious, but they are achievable, he said, noting: “We have a chance to improve the lives of not just millions, but billions of people on this planet….But it’s going to require a serious effort, a sustained effort.”