New era dawns in UCSF brain research

Cure Alzheimer’s, put a stop to strokes and solve the mystery of migraines. Those are some of the not-so-modest goals of UC San Francisco in its new neuroscience building in the Mission Bay neighborhood.

Ground was broken on the 237,000-square-foot facility Monday evening after some of UCSF’s leading brain researchers spoke about their work with worms, songbirds and video games — and how those projects could help the university reach its goals.

The curvy, five-story building and the adjacent Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Hall Neuroscience Building will combine to make 400,000 square feet devoted to learning more about the brain.

The project aims to bring researchers and doctors from at least 10 facilities scattered across The City under one roof. One goal is to have scientists of many disciplines in the same building so, for example, a doctor treating a person with dementia might be just across the hall from a researcher peering at nematodes that have been molded to have similar neurological problems.

The $200 million project is being built on Koret Field, immediately across from Genentech Hall, UCSF’s largest Mission Bay building. It’s being built using an unusual lease-to-own financial structure — the construction is being paid for by a private developer, from whom the university will lease the building for 32 to 40 years until it’s paid off.

Prior to the groundbreaking, the university held a neuroscience symposium, and some of its most renowned brain researchers outlined the school’s research, along with the hopes and dreams for the new building, which should be complete in two years.

Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Allison Doupe described her research scanning the brains of songbirds to learn more about what may be going on inside human brains that suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder or psychosis. Dr. Aimee Kao talked about research on her worms that determined what role a critical brain protein plays in several neurological diseases. Dr. Wade Smith unveiled new methods of treating strokes by removing blood clots from brains using miniscule catheters.

Dr. Stephen Hauser, chair of the Neurology Department, said having researchers in the same building as clinicians will allow scientists to have a “bench-to-bedside-and-back-again approach.”

Hauser listed a host of neurodegenerative diseases, including cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s and chronic pain. He proposed that the new facility and research done inside it will help cure many diseases — a goal he admitted was “a bit audacious, but extraordinarily exciting.”