$50 million gifted for Institute

USC benefactors Mark and Mary Stevens have donated $50 million to officiate the creation of the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute.

The endowment will be used to expand the understanding of the human brain and enable researchers to discover new ways to treat, prevent and cure brain disorders. The Institute will be led by professors Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson.

The funds will also enable the researchers to undertake more high-risk and high-reward projects, collect preliminary data and recruit additional top faculty.

According to USC News, researchers plan to accelerate the translation of basic research into new therapies, preventions and cures for brain injury and diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and traumatic brain injury.

Toga sees the endowment as an opportunity to look at more unusual types of relationships.

“For example, are there things that occur when people are young, early in life that affect them later in life?” Toga said.  “Those are lifelong investigations that are extremely important in terms of understanding reduction of risk for neurological or psychiatric disorders or ways in which we can improve brain health.”

The institute and its Laboratory of Neuroimaging was originally brought to the Keck School of Medicine in 2013, to unite a team of more than 130 faculty and scientific staff members. The institute represents a diverse group of faculty from around the world who are acclaimed leaders in examining the brain’s structure and function in health and disease.

According to USC News, the institute has recruited a large group of global scientists to pool resources in “reverse-engineering” the brain. Specifically, the institute will study the ways in which they can learn to map and understand how its structure plays into its function.

The institute was among the first to map the spread of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain and to create digital 3-D and 4-D brain atlases to examine the effects of neurological diseases.

The institute is known for the world’s largest repository of healthy and diseased brain images, along with medical and cognitive data from diverse populations around the globe.

It will continue to partner with the Viterbi School of Engineering, and other faculty in biology, genetics, biostatistics, computer science, mathematics, pharmacology and numerous other disciplines.

President C. L. Max Nikias said that the funds will be used to explore a captivating new field.

“Neuroscience has been called ‘the final frontier’ in medical science’s progress toward a fuller understanding of human life and human health,” Nikias told USC News.  “Through the Stevens’s support, USC researchers will have the opportunity to address many of the most pressing questions in medicine today.”

Students will also benefit from the endowment as it creates a more interdisciplinary learning experience for students on both campuses.

Toga said that overall, the donation is going to be most beneficial for students.

“We’ll have more and interesting projects that students can participate in and those are the type of experiences that are great for students because it engages them in a kind of science they really wouldn’t have an opportunity to see otherwise,” Toga told the Daily Trojan.

As longtime USC benefactors, Mark and Mary Stevens have made lasting impacts in areas ranging from engineering and innovation to now medicine and the life sciences.

“The gift from the Stevens is unbelievably bold,” Toga said.  “For him to have the vision and the level of commitment not only to USC but to this institute, I think that’s a testament to the excellence of USC and his recognition of not only how good we are, but how good we can be, how much better we can be.”