New Center of Excellence in Basic Neuroscience Committed to Collaboration

With the establishment of a new Center of Excellence in Basic Neuroscience in the fall of 2010, McLean is focusing on enhancing a research environment that is intellectually rigorous and conducive to discovery. The division, the third created in accordance with McLean’s strategic plan, promotes a research culture in which scientists with different interests, expertise, and backgrounds ask interdisciplinary questions, according to Joseph Coyle, MD, chief of this new division and head of McLean’s Psychiatric and Molecular Neuroscience Laboratory.

Answers to these questions provide the most nuanced and revealing insights about brain function in serious psychiatric illness and addiction. “By enhancing communication and collaborative interactions, the Center of Excellence in Basic Neuroscience is greater than the sum of its parts,” he says.

Recruitment and retention of outstanding faculty who are addressing important research questions and creating a robust mentoring environment are key foci of the new division. “I would like our investigators to feel that they are part of a community and not individuals working on their own. The enhanced collaboration and the research and grants that will grow out of these interactions will make us even more effective scientifically,” says Coyle.

As McLean begins its third century, it is an appropriate time to reaffirm its visionary commitment to fundamental research, according to Coyle. “McLean is truly the birthplace of neurochemistry. Our work today in the Center of Excellence in Basic Neuroscience continues that proud tradition,” he says. “Armed with the knowledge we possess within these walls, the talent, the drive and the resources, we are well positioned to improve people’s lives for generations to come.”