A laboratory and office building in Natal, Brazil, was the first facility opened in 2005 when Miguel Nicolelis ( right ) and his collaborators established the International Institute of Neuroscience of Natal....[More]

A laboratory and office building in Natal, Brazil, was the first facility opened in 2005 when Miguel Nicolelis (right) and his collaborators established the International Institute of Neuroscience of Natal. Their goal was to create a world-class neuroscience research institution in Brazil while also using science to spur social and economic transformation of the local community.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Nicolelis, 46, observing the activity of rodent brain cells as the animal goes about its normal activities. Nicolelis has pioneered techniques for eavesdropping on hundreds of individual neurons at once through implanted electrodes....[More]

Nicolelis, 46, observing the activity of rodent brain cells as the animal goes about its normal activities. Nicolelis has pioneered techniques for eavesdropping on hundreds of individual neurons at once through implanted electrodes. As co-director of the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering, he has analyzed such data to decode the basic language of the brain and to translate it into commands for robotic arms and legs. He hopes they will be the basis of mind-controlled prosthetic limbs for the disabled.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Natal is the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, an underdeveloped state in Brazil’s northeast that contributes less than one percent of Gross Domestic Product....[More]

Natal is the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, an underdeveloped state in Brazil’s northeast that contributes less than one percent of Gross Domestic Product. Nicolelis believes that the institute’s transformative influence will be most visible in Natal, and that the region is where such change is most needed.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Natal’s illiteracy rate above age 15 is 21.5 percent, double the national average. Life expectancy is nearly 4 years less than in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.

Hindiael Belchior, a graduate student at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, is one of a dozen Ph.D. candidates pursuing studies at the IINN....[More]

Hindiael Belchior, a graduate student at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, is one of a dozen Ph.D. candidates pursuing studies at the IINN. Research at the Natal laboratory facility includes studies of Parkinson’s disease-like states induced in rodents.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Sidarta Ribeiro ( left ), scientific director of the institute, was a postdoctoral fellow in Nicolelis’ lab at Duke in 2003 when they had the idea to create a network of high-caliber research institutes in Brazil....[More]

Sidarta Ribeiro (left), scientific director of the institute, was a postdoctoral fellow in Nicolelis’ lab at Duke in 2003 when they had the idea to create a network of high-caliber research institutes in Brazil. “It was about reversing the brain drain,” says Nicolelis, “but we also knew that it had to be a driving force for social change.” After a large endowment from Mrs. Lily Safra allowed the plan’s development to accelerate in 2006, the institute changed its name to the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience of Natal (IINN-ELS).  [Less] [Link to this slide]

A new IINN-ELS health clinic in the farming community of Macaíba, 20km from Natal, is located on a 100-hectare site where the main “Campus of the Brain” is being built....[More]

A new IINN-ELS health clinic in the farming community of Macaíba, 20km from Natal, is located on a 100-hectare site where the main “Campus of the Brain” is being built. The clinic specializes in maternal and child health in an area of Brazil with infant mortality of 36.1 per 1,000 births — compared with a national average of 25.1 per 1,000. It will also be the first health facility in the entire region to offer neuropediatric treatment.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

A school in Natal with 600 middle-school-aged students is one of two established by the IINN-ELS. The second, in Macaíba, has 400 kids enrolled....[More]

A school in Natal with 600 middle-school-aged students is one of two established by the IINN-ELS. The second, in Macaíba, has 400 kids enrolled. In collaboration with local schools, the children attend classes in science and art twice a week at the institute sites.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

The IINN-ELS schools emphasize hands-on scientific inquiry in classes and provide high quality equipment.

Ongoing teacher training ensures that teaching methods are up to date. IINN-ELS school staffers are also working with the Ministry of Education to create a science curriculum for 354 new national technical high schools....[More]

Ongoing teacher training ensures that teaching methods are up to date. IINN-ELS school staffers are also working with the Ministry of Education to create a science curriculum for 354 new national technical high schools.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Nicolelis believes that learning scientific methods and principles improves critical thinking skills in general.

Nicolelis emphasizes that the educational arm of his project is not intended to create a nation of scientists. “We are trying to create a generation of citizens capable of leading Brazil,” he explains....[More]

Nicolelis emphasizes that the educational arm of his project is not intended to create a nation of scientists. “We are trying to create a generation of citizens capable of leading Brazil,” he explains. “These kids already have the hopes—now what they need is the tools.”  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Arts classes at IINN-ELS schools are intended to foster creativity.

A new research building on the Macaíba campus site has 25 laboratories and is equipped for work with primates, which Nicolelis uses in his work on robotic prosthetics.

Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ( center ) visited the IINN-ELS facilities in August 2007. When he met with the school faculty, they gave him a tee shirt designed by students....[More]

Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (center) visited the IINN-ELS facilities in August 2007. When he met with the school faculty, they gave him a tee shirt designed by students. He pledged $25 million toward completing the Campus of the Brain.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Brazil’s education minister Fernando Haddad (left) also visited the IINN-ELS in 2007. Here, he is receiving a tour of the facilities by Nicolelis.

An auditorium on the Campus of the Brain site is named for pioneering Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos Dumont. The nonprofit association formed to run the IINN-ELS and similar institutes that Nicolelis hopes to create in Brazil, is also called the Alberto Santos Dumont Association for the Support of Research (AASDAP)....[More]

An auditorium on the Campus of the Brain site is named for pioneering Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos Dumont. The nonprofit association formed to run the IINN-ELS and similar institutes that Nicolelis hopes to create in Brazil, is also called the Alberto Santos Dumont Association for the Support of Research (AASDAP).  [Less] [Link to this slide]

Jatropha curcas , a tropical plant whose seeds can contain more than 40 percent oil, is a popular raw material for biodiesel manufacture in Asia....[More]

Jatropha curcas, a tropical plant whose seeds can contain more than 40 percent oil, is a popular raw material for biodiesel manufacture in Asia. The IINN-ELS project includes plans for an adjacent biotech park, which will partially support the institute’s operation. The park will include a biodiesel research and manufacturing facility to process oil produced by local farmers from Jatropha plants.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

At the Campus of the Brain site in Macaíba, construction is continuing and a billboard announces, “Here begins the future of science in Brazil.”