Duke Institute for Brain Sciences Initiatives

You can help us improve lives by energizing the brain sciences at Duke.

Research

The Institute provides seed grants to promote discoveries and community-building awards to form visionary research teams. Our major grant, Incubator Awards, yields an average 7:1 return on investment.

• An Incubator Award funded research on magnetic field treatments for depression.The $185k investment has led to $9M of NIH funding and more than 62 scientific publications.
• An Incubator Award supported development of brain prosthetics to help non-vocal patients, such as those experiencing ALS or strokes, speak again. The $100k investment has yielded $12M in NIH funding, a patent and nine publications, establishing Duke as a preeminent center for speech prosthetics.
• Another Incubator Award funded studies on the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in premature
• infants using an iPad app developed at Duke and made available on the Apple store.
• Germinator Awards support exploratory post-doctoral and graduate student research. Recently-funded
• projects are studying the causes and treatments of Alzheimer's disease and macular degeneration.
• We recently awarded 19 PhD Fellowships, including 4 specifically dedicated to Alzheimer's disease, ensuring that the next generation of brain scientists will persevere in the face of reduced federal funding.

Education

The Institute's educational initiatives boost the next generation of scholars. Our support benefits annually >300 undergraduate students, PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and research staff across Duke.

• The Institute founded the interdisciplinary Neuroscience Major at Duke in 2009. It has grown to be among the largest at Duke with >1,300 graduates to date.
• The Cognitive Neuroscience Research Internship has been awarded to over 100 Duke undergraduates to provide them with their first research experiences.

Community Engagement 

The Institute supports initiatives at the interface of brain sciences and society.

• The Duke University Neuroscience Experience (DUNE) brings Durham high school students to Duke labs for summer research. Since 2021, we have funded 40 DUNE scholars.
• The Brain and Society theme of Bass Connections funds teams of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty to tackle complex, brain-related societal issues.

To keep up the pace of discovery at Duke, we need your help.
Gifts of any amount will help us solve the brain's mysteries, together.