PIKs renew focus on neuroscience

Penn is continuing its efforts to maintain its status as a pioneer on the final frontier - the human brain.

The University announced the creation of five new Penn Integrates Knowledge professorships related to the field of neuroscience last week. The move will expand the PIK program - which recruits professors who engage in interdisciplinary research - beyond its original goal of 18 professors and bolster Penn's growing neuroscience programs.

This PIK program expansion will be funded by a $50-million contribution from Penn's Health System.

The five new PIK professors will hold joint appointments with the School of Medicine and one other department in another school.

The PIK expansion is part of Penn's larger efforts to become one of the nation's premier centers of neuroscience, Penn spokesman Jordan Reese said. The University has added 18 faculty positions in the neurosciences since 2006.

Vice Provost for Research Steven Fluharty cited the Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences and the Biological Basis of Behavior department - one of the first undergraduate programs of its kind - as ways Penn has been a pioneer in the field.

He said the continuation of Penn's neuroscience interest comes at an opportune time.

"We've never had the arsenal of tools that we do now," Fluharty said. "The tools, techniques and technologies now available to us will help us probe the human brain."

The five neuroscience PIK positions have not yet been filled, but deans are in the recruitment process, Fluharty said.

"I can't say exactly when, but you can expect to see new names soon," he said.

The recruitment process for most PIK professors is particularly challenging because it requires the University to extract professors from institutions where their research, teaching and personal lives are already well established. The deans "basically have to pry them up out of their homes," in order to get them to come to Penn, Fluharty said.

Undergraduate students - particularly those interested in fields of brain and behavior - have a lot to gain from these neuroscience initiatives, according to the director of the Biological Basis of Behavior program, Ted Abel.

"These are all outstanding teachers, and they're a great resource for people across the University," Abel said. "It's great that undergrads will have access to these minds and these labs as well."

Abel added that the new neuroscience research facilities will also enhance research in fields related to his department.

These facilities include the recently completed Translational Research Laboratories, as well as nascent projects such as the Neural and Behavioral Sciences building and the Fisher Translational Research Center.

College junior and Biological Basis of Behavior major Brian Kroener said that he thinks the push toward interdisciplinary science is a good thing.

"I don't think I'll actually see the changes in the time that I'm here, but more interdisciplinary stuff is always better," he said.

Adrian Raine - a PIK professor who studies neuroscience and its relation to criminal behaviors - said Penn's interest in the brain is going to be "an enormous benefit to fields that may have nothing to do with neuroscience."

"There are a lot of societal implications for the burgeoning field of neuroscience," he said. "But above all, we want a full and open discussion. Doubling the resources we give to the neuroscience field will help that."

Each professor will be endowed with $5 million, Penn President Amy Gutmann said, and the remaining $25 million will be allocated to help with the costs of relocating them, as well as to other neuroscience-related initiatives.

"The PIK program has been so popular on campus and has added so much to our ability to move forward in our strongest fields," Gutmann said. "This was another opportunity to expand what the PIKs can do."

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