The Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute or VTCRI officially opens Wednesday in Roanoke. (Carilion Clinic) |
Scientists working on cures for cancer and trying to unlock the secrets to how our brain works.
That's what will be going on at The Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute or VTCRI. It officially opens Wednesday in Roanoke.
"We are extremely excited. We can't wait to get going." said Michael Friedlander who heads up the Institute. "We've been here for three months working out of temporary offices and while you can do a lot from an office on your computer and your telephone. You can't really do science at a desk. You need a lab, so we're chomping at the bit ready to go."
What is now just empty labs will soon be filled with microscopes, petri dishes and truckloads of equipment that'll arrive this week. At least two huge magnetic resonance imaging or MRI machines will also be moved into the building. Top notch scientists will also arrive ready to work.
Scientists will focus on cancer research as well as research on heart disease, but a large focus will be on studying the brain. Something called the "Roanoke Brain Study" will enlist 15,000 people and study their brain function over decades.
Most of us won't be around 70 or 80 years from now when the study is complete but it will provide valuable information along the way.
"It'll give us very powerful data and new insights into how brain function changes over time but even getting snapshots in a point in time of how brain function occurs and related to genetics and diseases people develop will give us an enormous new data base that will not only help us, investigators at the VTCRI, but all over the world who are probing brain function in a whole host of disorders," said Friedlander.
The research institute is adjacent to the new Virginia Tech Carilion Medical School in Roanoke.
