Indian-origin biophysicist wins prestigious US grant

Washington: A high-risk brain research by Indian-origin biophysicist Partha Mitra from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York has won a crucial grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The grant will allow him to develop a ‘virtual neuroanatomist’, an artificial-intelligence system that can identify cell types and neural structures in microscopic images of brain slices.

"I am pleased to see the NSF embracing projects designed by investigators instead of prescribing specific research," a report in the journal Nature quoted Mitra as saying.

To support the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative by the US government, the NSF has awarded 36 small grants totalling $10.8 million to projects studying everything from electrodes that measure chemical and electronic signals to artificial intelligence programs to identify brain structures.

The agency sent a request in March this year for informal, two-page project ideas.

The only criterion was that the projects somehow address the properties of neural circuits.

The wide-ranging list of winning projects includes mathematical models that help computers recognise different parts and patterns in the brain, physical tools such as new types of electrodes, and other tools that integrate and link neural activity to behaviour.

The agencies participating in the BRAIN Initiative have taken markedly different approaches.

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, which received $50 million this year for the neuroscience programme, is concentrating on prosthetics and treatments for brain disorders that affect veterans, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
It has already awarded multi-million dollar grants to several teams.