Neuroscience research has become a high profile knowledge industry and aims at making seminal contributions to the understanding of the human brain and the fight against brain disease. Our current insight into the human genome and networks of genes, interacting proteins and neuron-glia interactions, and synaptic transmission embedded in neuronal networks has paved the way towards the understanding of higher brain functions and its pathology. The elucidation of the human genome and the analysis of the genetics of a number of model organisms (including mice) allow us to transcend the boundaries across various disciplines including biomedical, biophysical, psychological and clinical neurosciences.
We are currently the largest neuroscience research community gathered on one campus in the Netherlands. We are strongly focussing on molecular neurobiology, going all the way from biophysics, genetics, genomics and systems biology of the synapse, to heritability and genetic basis of brain function.
Our mission is to study the brain and its disease mechanisms through an integrative approach running from molecule-to-bedside. We apply a systems biology approach of the brain where clinicians and clinical researchers are working side-by-side with neuroscientists, geneticists, psychologists, biophysicists and statisticians.
We focus on three areas of research supported by Support Facilities: Advanced technology Programs, Genes & the Brain and Brain Disease Mechanisms.
Efforts to transcend the disciplinary boundaries, from physics via life sciences, and from there, all the way to medicine - and back - have been partially limited due to organizational boundaries. In the Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam we are trying to further resolve potential barriers.
© Copyright VU University Amsterdam
