On Mar. 10, 2004, The Kavli Foundation announced a $7.5 million award to establish a Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, M.D., University Professor of Psychiatry, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biophysiology.

The Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia University is focused on the development of novel experimental and computational strategies for analyzing and deciphering how signaling in neural circuits controls behavior. According to Dr. Kandel, “Our work will be directed toward developing more powerful tools to enable us to move from the study of individual nerve cells to that of complex neural systems which underlie the higher mental function.”

For decades, Columbia University has been a leader in advancing the neurosciences. Neural science at Columbia has succeeded in forging into one discipline the previously distinct fields of cell biology, physiology, and development of the nervous system with molecular biology, including molecular genetics. Recently, Columbia also successfully unified this cell and molecular approach to the brain with systems neural science and cognitive psychology.

The first director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia will be Dr. Kandel, who was co-recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Co-directors are Thomas Jessell, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, and Rafael Yuste, Ph.D., Columbia University associate professor of biological sciences.

The Kavli Institute at Columbia is one of nine institutes being established by the Kavli Foundation at leading universities worldwide. The other eight Kavli Institutes are located at Stanford (particle astrophysics & cosmology), University of California at San Diego (brain & mind), University of California at Santa Barbara (theoretical physics), Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (nanoscience), Yale (neuroscience), Cornell University (nanoscale science), California Institute of Technology (nanoscience), and University of Chicago (cosmological physics).

Based in Oxnard, Calif., the Kavli Foundation was established in 2000 by its Norwegian-born founder and benefactor, Fred Kavli, to advance science for the benefit of humanity and to promote increased public understanding and support for scientists and their work.

The foundation has selected three areas in which to focus its activities: cosmology, life sciences with emphasis on understanding the nature and evolution of life and the human being, and nanoscience with initial emphasis on bio-nanotechnology.