Brown and The National Institutes of Health will offer a joint graduate neuroscience program next fall for five students, according to Mary DeLongue, NIH's director of graduate partnerships.
"Brown University has a supreme undergraduate and graduate neuroscience program, and neuroscience is one of the major strengths of the NIH. So it would be reasonable for an institution like NIH to partner with an institution like Brown," DeLongue said.
The neuroscience partnership is "part of the strategic plan of the Brown community - enhance partnerships with other institutions, because Brown is a relatively small school," said Karen Newman, dean of the graduate school.
The University is currently pursuing a similar interdisciplinary partnership between the Division of Engineering and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Newman said.
Brown formed a partnership in summer 2003 with Marine Biological Laboratories at Woods Hole, Mass., to broaden its depth in biological research and course offerings. Brown and RISD also formed a joint committee last year to consider an array of new cooperative possibilties, in addition to current collaborations in digital media and art history, Newman said.
The joint program with the NIH is intended to benefit both graduate students and scientists. Graduate students will be exposed to two research environments, guided by mentors in two different fields, and will learn how to form collaborative projects in their future careers, DeLongue said.
Students accepted by the program will take classes at Brown during their first year, then choose between laboratories at Brown and the NIH for their second through fourth or fifth years.
Scientists involved in the joint program will also form new collaborations between the NIH and the neuroscience department. "As they co-mentor a student and start bringing their own research to mentor the student, they see collaborations and there is an added value because it extends their horizon," DeLongue said.
"We would certainly like to see (the partnership with the NIH) continue and possibly see it expand," said Jerome Sanes, professor of neuroscience. "We think it's an all-positive situation."
Joint programs like the one created with Brown are part of the NIH's goal to foster indisciplinary science.
"Where science is right now, it has become evident that the leaps of understanding will occur in the crossroads of two fields," DeLongue said. For example, she said, the invention of the artifical heart valve represents the union of engineering and physiology.
The NIH is funded and run by the federal government, with 27 institutes and centers. It includes a vast array of 1,250 scientists specializing in medical-related fields and provides much of the funding for biological research in U.S. universitites. Brown is one of 13 institutions with which the NIH has formed partnerships to offer Ph.D. training, DeLongue said.
