The Hope Center builds upon a research structure established in 1991 by Dennis W. Choi, former head of the School of Medicine’s Department of Neurology. Choi recognized that the basis of nervous system injury and repair is shared by many different neurological diseases.

The Hope Center’s goals are to fund research projects that are too timely to wait for federal grant funding, which can take two years, and to purchase costly, shared equipment and advanced instrumentation. The Center also is establishing core facilities to enhance scientists’ ability to discover and compete for National Institutes of Health funding.

“The analogy that we use is from the movie Field of Dreams—if you build it, they will come,” Goldberg says. “Most scientists here who have discovered a new gene or protein don’t have the expertise or the funding to investigate it using animal models. So a big part of what we are doing is to try to create the animal models and the tools that they’ll need to make these advances.”

Before the Hope Center was established, many scientists made discoveries they thought might improve treatments, but they never had the ability to test them directly. Translating findings to treatments is a long, time-consuming process, Goldberg says.

Philip V. Bayly, the Lilyan and E. Lisle Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and professor of biomedical engineering, studies how the brain moves inside the head during impact and the subsequent strain on brain tissue.

Philip V. Bayly, the Lilyan and E. Lisle Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, studies how the brain moves inside the head during an impact, such as in a car wreck or accidental fall. He has developed a technique using MRI that provides the first measurement of the actual strain on brain tissue upon impact. The information is vital to other scientists.

Goldberg’s laboratory, which focuses on stroke recovery, studies brain damage after injury and assesses subsequent animal behavior. He said Bayly’s expertise has helped scientists in his laboratory studying spinal cord injury or traumatic brain injury develop more advanced mouse models. “Bayly’s expertise—knowing the precise impact that causes trauma in mouse brains—has helped other scientists at the University conduct their research better than before,” Goldberg says.

Bayly sees himself as the “engineering foothold” in the Hope Center. “I can help foster interconnections between the Hope Center and the School of Engineering & Applied Science,” he says. “I’m also someone who is willing to find, use, and develop engineering approaches that are common to all neurological disorders.”

The Hope Center’s goals are to fund research projects that are too timely to wait for federal grant funding, which can take two years, and to purchase costly, shared equipment and advanced instrumentation.

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