The McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida is one of the nation's most comprehensive and technologically advanced centers devoted to neuroscience.

Today the MBI-UF's collaborative spirit is alive and growing and is represented by over 300 faculty from 51 academic departments and ten colleges and entails research and educational programs in nearly all aspects of basic, clinical and translational neuroscience. Additional collaborators around the world expand this into an international effort. To the best of our knowledge, there is no other academic program anywhere with this breadth and magnitude of multidisciplinary talent focused on the nervous system.

With a design theme of beyond the-state-of-the-art, the conceptual mission of the extramurally funded, $60 million, 210,000 gsf MBI-UF building was that it serve as a catalyst and focal point for widely diverse, but synergistically interacting multidisciplinary research programs. Thus, in addition to an obvious emphasis on high technology, the strategic design of the new building includes a strong emphasis on multi-user core facilities and a full digital integration of these and all other systems through high speed networks and state-of-the-art computer systems.

MBI-UF highlights

• Medical imaging suite with two of the world's most powerful magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems.
• Neurosurgical training laboratory.
• Computer-controlled linear accelerator for radiobiological and surgical research.
• A 245-foot, air conditioned bridge links the MBI-UF's neurological faculty offices to the UF Health Science Center and the operating suites of Shands at UF.
• Two "clean room" laboratories for experiments in gene and cell replacement therapy.