Introduction to the Nexus Project

The Nexus Project at UCLA is a new transdisciplinary initiative that will apply discoveries in genomics and neuroscience to the prevention of disease and the promotion of health. It will achieve these ambitious goals by integrating world class research programs targeting brain and behavior from molecular and cellular mechanisms, through comprehensive assessments of model organisms and human participants, to engagement with communities. The Nexus Project has been initiated by the Semel Institute – one of the world’s leading centers for research and education in brain and behavioral science – together with university-wide partners, as a centerpiece of a plan to make UCLA “The Health Campus.” It is the catalyst for engaging faculty, students and staff in developing programs that can have a high impact on the health of the diverse communities of Greater Los Angeles and eventually of the nation as a whole.

The Nexus Project brings together many of the most productive scientists at UCLA. These investigators are currently dispersed throughout the campus and even beyond its boundaries, often working in space that is cramped, out of date, and incompatible with the highly interactive team science organization and operational flexibility that are the Nexus Project’s founding principles. The architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox has developed a new building concept for the Nexus Project that will enable its mission and serve as a magnet for recruiting to UCLA the best new scientists from across the nation. This building will advance the Nexus concept in three fundamental ways:

Its location - connected to the existing Semel Institute Tower and in the heart of the biomedical campus – will help break down the artificial separation between the brain and the rest of the body;
The research areas are designed to enhance the interconnectedness of scientists within and between disciplines;
Public areas – including classrooms, exhibit space, and a garden – will ensure engagement with the Nexus scientific programs of the community that surrounds it, in particular UCLA’s extraordinary and diverse student body.

This engagement of the next generation of leaders during their student years will serve as a beachhead for the prevention strategies that are necessary to transform the nation’s health agenda – the ultimate objective of the Nexus Project.

The information describing the Nexus Project is intended for UCLA Faculty only and is not to be distributed to the public