Germany, Israel to fund J'lem brain research center

Hebrew University, Max Planck Society to build a new brain research center to serve as teaching, research facility in the field.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
brain (photo credit: Wikicommons)
brain
(photo credit: Wikicommons)
A brain research center costing 3 million euro during its first five years of existence will be established by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Max Planck Society, an independent non-governmental and nonprofit association of German research institutes publicly funded by Germany’s federal and state governments.
It will be established on the the university’s Givat Ram campus in the capital, where the signing ceremony will be held on January 9. The two sides will fund it equally, and Hebrew University president Prof. Menahem Ben-Sasson and German Ambassador Andreas Michaelis will participate.
The new center will work in cooperation with the Edmond and Lilly Safra Center for Brain Sciences, which will soon start construction of a large teaching and research facility in the field.
It will be ninth research center to be funded with German money outside the country and the first to specialize in brain research. The university said the facility is sure to bolster German-Israeli cooperation in the sciences.
Ben-Sasson said Tuesday that cooperative research with Germany is one of the most important and fruitful conducted here. It is hoped that the research will increase basic scientific understanding of genes, neurons and neural networks, and lead to improved treatment for destructive neurological diseases.