Research institute: Ireland's first institute of neuroscience costing €28 million and based at Trinity College Dublin was opened yesterday. The institute has also received research funding of €12 million.
The institute has pledged to try to find cures for many, until now, incurable diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia.
Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN) is funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and Atlantic Philanthropies, run by well-known Irish-American billionaire philanthropist Chuck Feeney.
The director of the institute, Prof Ian Robertson, said, "we will strive to find cures to many incurable diseases such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and depression".
Neuroscience attempts to decipher the workings of the human brain and increased research in this area is significant, considering that within 10 years depression will be the second biggest cause of ill health in the world after cardiac disorder, according to Prof Robertson.
Formally opening TCIN, the Tánaiste Ms Harney said as such innovative research centres were the future, it was important for Ireland to invest seriously and compete worldwide in neuroscience.
"We have to take research seriously . . . 400,000 people in Ireland are suffering from an illness of the brain. I find that an incredible statistic. This initiative will be fantastic in terms of the economy going forward," she said.
TCIN has bought Ireland's first high power research-dedicated brain imaging equipment.
The MRI machines study the structure of the human brain, how it functions as it thinks, remembers, plans, feels and reasons.
"It is twice as powerful as any other brain imaging machine in the country," said Prof Robertson.
TCIN has 20 principal academic staff who will undertake key investigations. It is also offering the first four-year integrated PhD programme in neuroscience in Ireland.
Funded by the Health Research Board, 60 PhD postdoctoral students are enrolled. TCIN also caters for undergraduate and additional postdoctoral students.
TCIN is one of the few centres in the world to be established from the start with an interdisciplinary programme where scientists from such fields as genetics, neurology and psychiatry, collaborate, according to Prof Robertson.
"TCIN is the most interdisciplinary neuroscience centre in the world," he said.
Prof Robertson said that similar to the ongoing Live8 campaign, TCIN was focused "on making brain disease history".
Provost of Trinity College, Dr John Hegarty, said: "This is a flagship development for the university and the whole country."
TCIN will be collaborating with neuroscience researchers in UCC, UCD and the Royal College of Surgeons and internationally with the University of California, Berkeley, University of Edinburgh and University College London.
Dr Maria Fitzgibbon, associate director of TCIN, said Beaumont Hospital was the main neurological centre in Ireland, focusing mainly on clinical neuroscience. "Trinity College has collaborated with them in the past before we had our own MRI machines, and we will collaborate with them again in the future."
Prof Robertson said TCIN's aim was "to contribute to major new treatment for incurable diseases within five years".