South side of Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Neuroscience Research Building (Photo – Caltech.edu)
The shining copper building with floor-to-ceiling windows is home to Caltech’s wide-ranging neuroscience research, bringing together in the same physical space researchers in genomics, biology, artificial intelligence, developmental biology and other disciplines.
By Kate Bartlett
The Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Neuroscience Research Building (CNRB) was dedicated on January 29, 2021. Virtual attendees included more than 850 Caltech leaders, researchers, students, alumni and friends. The 150,000 square-foot luminous copper building contains research and teaching laboratories, a 150-seat lecture hall and a neurotechnology center in which grad students and postdocs can set up complicated experiments requiring system engineering, measurement of behavior,stimuli observation and new software. The expansive windows provide sunlight to the teaching and conference rooms, and the human-focused gathering spaces feature skylights and gardens.
The CNRB houses the Chen Institute of Neuroscience, as well as faculty and researchers from other disciplines; before the completion of the CNRB, neuroscience labs were located primarily in the Beckmann Behavioral Building, Kirchoff Building, Moore Building and Broad Institute. The open design between the second and third floors makes interaction easier and promotes “imaginative research,” according to David Anderson, Professor of Biology and Director of the Chen Institute.
A chance encounter
The Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech originally was born from a chance encounter with a news report on the ability to control a robotic arm using only a person’s mind. Tianqiao Chan and his wife, Chrissy Luo, created the Institute to allow researchers to jumpstart new projects while the CNRB was under construction.
Caltech researchers probe the circuitry, cells and molecular, chemical and electrical pathways of the brain, pursue the neurological basis of personality, develop new brain imaging technique, map brain circuits, develop neurotechnology to treat brain disorders, investigate social cognition and emotions in humans, and quantify behaviors and correlate them to brain activity.
Viviana Gradinaru, professor of neuroscience and biological engineering and director the Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, said the Chen Institute is like a trampoline:
In science, we have to make leaps of faith. We have to jump high, and you jump much higher on a trampoline…especially one that has a safety net that’s big enough and welcoming of others and other opinions. This is what the Chen family provided us.
Always something new is being built.