Dana Foundation

Last updated
Dana Foundation
Formation1950
Founder Charles A. Dana
Typeprivate philanthropic
Key people
Steven E. Hyman, M.D. (chairman of the board of directors)
Caroline Montojo, Ph.D.(president)

The Dana Foundation (Charles A. Dana Foundation) is a private philanthropic organization based in New York dedicated to advancing neuroscience and society by supporting cross-disciplinary intersections such as neuroscience and ethics, law, policy, humanities, and arts. [1] [2]

Contents

Leadership

The foundation was founded in 1950 by Charles A. Dana, a legislator and businessman from New York State, and president of the Dana Corporation. [3] He presided over the organization until 1960, but continued to participate until his death in 1975.

Steven E. Hyman, M.D., is chairman of the board of directors of the foundation. Caroline Montojo, Ph.D., is the current president of the foundation. [4]

The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives

The Dana Foundation supported the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives (which included the European Dana Alliance for the Brain), a nonprofit organization of leading neuroscientists committed to advancing public awareness about the progress and promise of brain research, from 1993 to 2022. [5]

As William Safire put it in his column retiring from The New York Times in 2005: "They [the foundation] roped me in, a dozen years ago, to help enliven a moribund 'decade of the brain.' By encouraging many of the most prestigious neuroscientists to get out of the ivory tower and explain in plain words the potential of brain science, they enlisted the growing public and private support for research."

Grant programs

In 2022, the Dana Foundation pivoted away from grants for research to grants that aim to strengthen neuroscience's positive role in the world. Current grants fall under three categories.

NextGen: To develop a new generation of interdisciplinary experts who shepherd neuroscience uses for a better world. Its current major project is creating Dana Centers for Neuroscience & Society. [5] [6] [7]

Frontiers: To grow capacity for informed public reflection on emerging neuroscience and neurotechnology. Its projects include Judicial Seminars on Emerging Issues in Neuroscience, which provide state and federal judges in the US with a better understanding of the role neuroscience may play in making legal determinations in the courts, from the admissibility of neuroimaging evidence to decisions about criminal culpability. The foundation also provides funding for the Royal Society's Neuroscience and the Law program in the UK. [8]

Education: To spark interest and support education around neuroscience and the many ways it interfaces with our everyday lives. Its projects include the annual Brain Awareness Week, next held March 11-17, 2024. [9]

Past research grant programs

The Dana Foundation's area of research emphasis had been in neuroscience, focusing on neuroimaging and clinical neuroscience research. [10] In 2019, the foundation paused awarding new research grants while the board of trustees worked to revise its strategic plan for future neuroscience grants.

Also supported were studies to develop ethical guidelines in brain research and explore other aspects of neuroethics.

Public education

The foundation has a range of outreach initiatives for the general public and for targeted audiences. Major initiatives include:

Event-based programs

Brain Awareness Week (#brainweek) is the global campaign to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research. Partner organizations host creative and innovative activities in their communities to educate kids and adults about the brain. [11] Brain Awareness Week 2023 is March 13 to 19; BrainWeek 2024 will be March 11 to 17.

Free resources

The Dana Foundation website, dana.org, offers scientist-vetted information about the brain, including PDFs of publications, fact sheets, and lesson plans to download and share, as well as articles, videos, and podcasts targeted to non-scientists.

Web-based publications include reporting from neuroscience events, scientist Q&As, and Brain Basics. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neuroscience</span> Scientific study of the nervous system

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system, its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, psychology, physics, computer science, chemistry, medicine, statistics, and mathematical modeling to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons, glia and neural circuits. The understanding of the biological basis of learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness has been described by Eric Kandel as the "epic challenge" of the biological sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neuroscientist</span> Individual who studies neuroscience

A neuroscientist is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial cells and especially their behavioral, biological, and psychological aspect in health and disease.

In philosophy and neuroscience, neuroethics is the study of both the ethics of neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics. The ethics of neuroscience concerns the ethical, legal and social impact of neuroscience, including the ways in which neurotechnology can be used to predict or alter human behavior and "the implications of our mechanistic understanding of brain function for society... integrating neuroscientific knowledge with ethical and social thought".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colin Blakemore</span> British neurobiologist (1944–2022)

Sir Colin Blakemore,, Hon was a British neurobiologist, specialising in vision and the development of the brain. He was Yeung Kin Man Professor of Neuroscience and senior fellow of the Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study at City University of Hong Kong. He was a distinguished senior fellow in the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London and Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and a past Chief Executive of the British Medical Research Council (MRC). He was best known to the public as a communicator of science but also as the target of a long-running animal rights campaign. According to The Observer, he was both "one of the most powerful scientists in the UK" and "a hate figure for the animal rights movement".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decade of the Brain</span> Initiative of the United States Government in the 1990s

The Decade of the Brain was a designation for 1990–1999 by U.S. president George H. W. Bush as part of a larger effort involving the Library of Congress and the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health "to enhance public awareness of the benefits to be derived from brain research".

Nancy Coover Andreasen is an American neuroscientist and neuropsychiatrist. She currently holds the Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neurolaw</span>

Neurolaw is a field of interdisciplinary study that explores the effects of discoveries in neuroscience on legal rules and standards. Drawing from neuroscience, philosophy, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and criminology, neurolaw practitioners seek to address not only the descriptive and predictive issues of how neuroscience is and will be used in the legal system, but also the normative issues of how neuroscience should and should not be used.

Jonathan D. Moreno is an American philosopher and historian who specializes in the intersection of bioethics, culture, science, and national security, and has published seminal works on the history, sociology and politics of biology and medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Core for Neuroethics</span>

The National Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia was established in August 2007, with support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, the Canada Research Chairs program, the UBC Brain Research Centre and the UBC Institute of Mental Health. Co-founded by Judy Illes and Peter Reiner, the Core studies neuroethics, with particular focus on ethics in neurodegenerative disease and regenerative medicine, international and cross-cultural challenges in brain research, neuroimaging and ethics, the neuroethics of enhancement, and personalized medicine.

The British Neuroscience Association (BNA) is a scientific society with around 2,500 members. Starting out as an informal gathering of scientists meeting at the Black Horse Public House in London to discuss brain-related topics, on the 23rd of February 1968 it was formerly established as the Brain Research Association, and subsequently relaunched as the British Neuroscience Association in 1997.

The Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote and advance knowledge that links neuroscience research to a growing understanding of human responses to the built environment.

Rebecca M. Jordan-Young, is an American feminist scientist and gender studies scholar. Her research focuses on social medical science, sex, gender, sexuality, and epidemiology. She is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College.

The White House BRAIN Initiative is a collaborative, public-private research initiative announced by the Obama administration on April 2, 2013, with the goal of supporting the development and application of innovative technologies that can create a dynamic understanding of brain function.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to brain mapping:

The Brain Mapping Foundation is a neuroscience organization established in 2004 by Babak Kateb to advance cross-pollination of ideas across physical sciences into biological sciences and neuroscience. The organization provides funding to the members of the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT). One of the focuses of the foundation is to further establish and fund the National Center for NanoBioElectronics (NCNBE) to rapidly integrate nanotechnology, devices, imaging, cellular and stem cell therapy. The organization has played a significant role in President Obama's BRAIN initiative.

The International Neuroethics Society (INS) is a professional organization that studies the social, legal, ethical, and policy implications of advances in neuroscience. Its mission is to encourage and inspire research and dialogue on the responsible use of advances in brain science. The current INS President is Joseph J. Fins, MD.

Brain Awareness Week is the global campaign to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research. It unites the efforts of partner organizations from around the world in a week-long celebration of the brain every year in mid-March. It was founded by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives in 1995 and is coordinated by the Dana Foundation. Strategic partners include the Society for Neuroscience, the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies, and the International Brain Research Organization.

The Simons Foundation is an American private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the United States with assets of over $5 billion in 2022, the foundation's mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. The foundation supports science by making grants to individual researchers and their projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gina Rippon</span> Professor of cognitive neuroimaging

Gina Rippon is a British neurobiologist and feminist. She is a professor emeritus of cognitive neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre, Aston University, Birmingham. Rippon has also sat on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychophysiology. In 2019, Rippon published her book, Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience that Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain, which investigates the role of life experiences and biology in brain development.

Lucina Q. Uddin is an American cognitive neuroscientist who is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research investigates the relationship between brain connectivity and cognition in typical and atypical development using network neuroscience approaches.

References

  1. "About Dana Foundation". dana.org.
  2. "About Funding and Grants". dana.org.
  3. "Dana Foundation History". dana.org.
  4. "Dana Foundation Will Install New President in March". dana.org.
  5. 1 2 "Dana Awards 11 Planning Grants". dana.org.
  6. "MIT: Neuroscience & Society". www.neurosociety.center.
  7. "Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics receives Dana Foundation Planning Grant". bioethics.hms.harvard.edu.
  8. "Neuroscience & Society Grants". dana.org.
  9. "Brain Awareness Week". dana.org/brain-awareness-week.
  10. "Dana Foundation: Our Roots". dana.org.
  11. "Brain Awareness Week". dana.org/brain-awareness-week.
  12. "Resources". dana.org.