Brain Canada will soon request applications for Platform Support Grants (PSGs) that are, "intended to contribute to the operating costs of national or regional research platforms that serve large numbers of researchers in the neurosciences". The draft request for applications for this initiative (www.braincanada.ca/files/Draft_RFA_for_PSGs_March_2013.pdf) makes it clear that it will be essential to improve, upgrade, link and coordinate existing infrastructure so that it works better and/or is more widely accessible, ultimately accelerating neuroscience research. The intention is to fund 10 grants at up to $1 million pa for 3 years.

Interested stakeholders, including researchers and funding partners, met on April 12th and decided that the Manitoba neuroscience community is in a position of strength to be active in this competition. We intend to build an application that emphasizes our human brain imaging capabilities. We have a nationally distinct portfolio of human neuroimaging approaches, including Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), PET, CT, intraoperative MRI and soon combined PET/MRI. We also have a new complementary core with strength in small animal PET, MRI, CT, IVIS and 2-photon imaging, and numerous in vitro imaging capabilities spanning several department and institutes. Supporting all of these are core facilities in epigenetics, proteomics, experimental radiopharmacy and others. It will be our position that we can bind our imaging modalities together as a uniquely innovative offering of approaches to facilitate neuroscience research from bench to bedside. At least, this will be presented as a Provincial platform in neuroimaging, and it remains possible with further development that the application could be for a prairie-wide regional platform. The innovative and translational nature of the Kleysen Institute will be a cornerstone of this strategy.

At this stage, it is imperative to get a strong sense of the potential users of this neuroimaging platform. I am therefore asking you to send me a short paragraph describing whether any of the imaging techniques mentioned above do or will serve your research interests, and how. Please add anything in particular you would need in terms of platform support to facilitate your work in these neuroimaging directions more efficiently. Would you use any of the techniques if you didn't have to operate the equipment yourself, but had an individual dedicated to its operation for researchers? Some have said that providing technical expertise would make for easier accessibility. Others have mentioned that employing a strong computational biologist would facilitate image analysis that would otherwise be next to impossible. Please be creative. This is your chance!

You are not making any commitments and you need not be detailed. You may also speculate on how the platform might be useful to you even if you do not have concrete plans at this point. We are looking for as many responses as we can get and ultimately, the success of this effort is predicated on having the largest group of impacted users possible.

Thank you for your attention. Please try to send a quick response to Nancy Klos at nancy.klos@ad.umanitoba.ca by Monday, April 22nd. If you are interested, see below for a sample response. Also, if you are interested in being part of this continuing dialogue and want to attend any future meetings to discuss this platform and the proposed Brain Canada submission, please let us know in your response. We would welcome your thoughts and input.

Sincerely,

Chris Anderson on behalf of several interested stakeholders

Sample response: An example of a sufficient response at this stage would be: One of my research goals is to improve cerebral blood flow after brain injury. We use 2-photon imaging of brain slices to test neuron-astrocyte communication in neurovascular coupling. We plan to use this technique also in live animals in the small animal imaging core. Using discoveries about neurovascular coupling in vitro and in vivo, we would like to manipulate blood flow to improve regional brain metabolism after injury using PET in animals and eventually in humans. PET in animals and humans is an area of particular interest for me. There is much potential in using new PET probes to study different aspects of brain function. We have a unique capability to synthesize new PET probes and I am interested in having a radiochemist employed to link this expertise to research in PET imaging of brain function after injury.

Kelly Jorundson Winnipeg Chapter Society for Neuroscience R4046 - 351 Tache Avenue Winnipeg, MB R2H 2A6

Tel: 204.235.3939 Fax: 204.237.4092 Email: kjorund@sbrc.ca OR kjorund@yahoo.ca