A World Leader in Research

Under the leadership of Anne Young, MD, PhD, chief of neurology and MIND’s founder, MassGeneral investigators have made extraordinary contributions to our understanding of neurodegenerative disorders including finding numerous disease genes, elucidating disease mechanisms and opening new areas of inquiry, all of which has fueled ideas for treatment. Research programs in each disease area are coordinated, collaborative and complementary, drawing upon the expertise and knowledge of twenty different laboratories. This approach has resulted in numerous notable research advances since MIND’s inception.

Research Programs:

• Research Review 2008
• Research Review 2007
• Research Advance 2006
• Research Advances 2005
• Research Advances 2003

Resources and Core Facilities

Discoveries in MIND’s laboratories have immediate implications for development of potential therapeutics with our drug screening laboratory, animal laboratory resources, and connections with international clinical study groups. MIND offers its scientists a robust environment with the technology and core facilities necessary to accelerate this process:

• High throughput drug screening laboratory provides equipment and technical expertise to develop assays for screening of potential compounds, utilizing a library of more than 30,000 compounds.
• Multiple  DNA sequencing machines and genomic robotics for gene and SNP analyses
• Center for Interdisciplinary Informatics provides in-house bioinformatics support including Affymetric GeneChip microarray data analyses
• Advanced Tissue Resource Center  provides state-of art molecular pathology resources including laser capture microscopy, DNA/RNA expression analysis, tissue microarrays and real time PCR
• ADRC Tissue Bank and Pathology Laboratory  provides more than 1500 different brain tissue samples representing all the neurodegenerative diseases for molecular research.
• Electrophysiology Laboratory for conducting electrochemical experiments
• Multiple tissue culture facilities that support cell culture experiments
• Barrier facilities for housing  transgenic mouse models of the ND diseases that are professionally managed and easily accessible.
• Behavioral testing facilities that allow efficient analysis of animal models
• Advanced microscopy equipment allows molecular biologists to use a wide variety of robust techniques to examine disease processes.
• Confocal microscopes
• 2-photon microscopes
• Electron microscope
  

 

 

MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease
Building 114-2001, 16th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129
(617) 726-1278 • e-mail mghmind@partners.org
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