MUSEUM RECEIVING NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION FUNDS TO ACQUIRE AND MAKE BRAIN COLLECTIONS ACCESSIBLE ON INTERNET
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The National Museum of Health and Medicine will receive more than $300,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) of Arlington, Va. over the next three years to continue to acquire mammalian brain collections and make them accessible to the public on the Internet and by CD-ROM. NSF approval of the grant was made on the basis of the project's scientific and technical merit.

The funds will be used to transfer to the museum the remainder of the Johnson Collection at Michigan State University and the Welker Collection at the University of Wisconsin-Madison not already located at the museum and to continue to create text and images of specimens in those collections and the museum's Yakovlev-Haleem Collection for easy access by the public on the Internet.

"Many people are still not aware of our valuable brain resources and many of those who do know of them are unable to afford to visit these collections," said Adrianne Noe, Ph.D., the museum's director and co-principal investigator of the project. "With electronic access educators can better enlighten students in grade school and high school about biological sciences."

The museum's neuroanatomical collection, boosted in 1993 with the acquisition of the Yakovlev-Haleem Collection, is a repository of research and educational materials that focus on the study of the brain and consists of nine different collections with approximately 37,000 specimens. The collection, together with its written documentation and a growing database, is available to qualified researchers, evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Also, co-principal investigators on this grant are Jim Connor, Ph.D., the museum's assistant director for collections and Archie Fobbs, curator; Surinder Sandhu, Ph.D, is the NSF-funded technician who assists with curation.

The Yakovlev-Haleem Collection of 1,570 specimens is a collection of normal and pathological anatomy showing development of the human brain and comparative mammals that is primarily whole-brain serial sections mounted on slides. It was built by Dr. Paul Ivan Yakovlev, a neurologist at several hospitals and Harvard Medical School, who began the collection in 1930 at Monson State Hospital. It is accessible via the Internet at nmhm.washingtondc.museum/collections/neuro/collections.html.

The Welker Collection is a comparative mammalian brain collection of 409 specimens of serially sectioned comparative mammalian brains that are stained and mounted on glass slides, accompanied by documentation. It was created by Dr. Wally Welker at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been partially transferred to the museum. It is accessible via the Internet at brainmuseum.org/explore/index.html.

The Johnson Collection is a comparative mammalian brain collection of 156 specimens of serially sectioned comparative mammalian brains that are stained and mounted on glass slides accompanied by documentation. This collection has an emphasis on marsupial mammals. It was created by Dr. John I. Johnson of the Department of Anatomy at Michigan State University. The future home of the Johnson collection will be the museum. It is accessible via the Internet at: www.msu.edu/user/brains/.

The grant also funds the transfer of the Huber-Crosby Brain Collection from the University of Michigan to the museum and the transfer of the Patten Embryological Collection from the University of Michigan to the museum's Human Developmental Anatomy Center.

"We're excited about this ongoing support and recognition, because many of these animals are now endangered or close to extinction," said Jim Connor, Ph.D., the museum's assistant director for collections and also co-principal investigator for this project. "It is our duty to ensure these specimens continue to be properly cared for, because these brains are a precious resource for the study of comparative neuroanatomy." The museum also uses the grant to provide information about the collections through public outreach programs such as Brain Awareness Week, Sense of Smell Day, and Doctor for a Day.