Israel's largest institute for brain research will be launched next week at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The new $130 million Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (or ELSC) will be announced in the presence of Mrs. Lily Safra.
The decision to invest in a center for brain sciences is based on the findings of an international monitoring committee, whose members include two Nobel laureates, Prof. Bert Sakmann and Prof. Richard Axel. The committee determined that the level of research in the field of brain sciences at the Hebrew University is among the highest in the world. The Safra Center will pursue five different inter-cooperative fields of brain research. The first will focus on genes, molecules and nerve cells in the brain; the second will focus on research of structure and function of local neuronal circuits; the third will focus on research of electrical activity and the communication between brain areas, with the aim of understanding how senses, movement and thoughts are created; the fourth will research cognitive processes and will focus mainly on aspects of human brain function; while the fifth will focus on theoretical fields, computational aspects and building models of the nervous system, proposing new experiments and predicting their results.