Meeting of the Minds

For more than thirty years, the Dana Foundation has provided funding for a broad swath of brain-related research. In 2022, the philanthropic organization streamlined its mission, focusing on providing support to innovative education, training, and public engagement projects that bridge the intersection of neuroscience and society. The overarching goal of the change was to find new ways to leverage brain science to “build a better future.”

To discuss how to best shape such a future, Khara Ramos, Ph.D., Vice President of Neuroscience & Society at the Dana Foundation, has been speaking at meetings across the country to highlight what the Dana Foundation does, as well as to inspire discussions about the different ethics and policy concerns that must be considered to fully realize the potential of neuroscience research. To that end, Ramos recently spoke at Rice University in Houston, Texas, at the Meeting of the Minds, an event sponsored by Rice University’s Educational and Research Initiatives for Collaborative Health (ENRICH) program and the Rice NeuroEngineering Initiative.

“The Meeting of the Minds NeuroNetworking Series reflects Rice University’s commitment to advancing neuro-related research,” said Sharon Pepper, executive director of ENRICH. “It is one of several institutional efforts to build local, state, and global strategic partnerships to reinforce Rice’s role as a hub for innovation in neuroengineering, neuroscience, and neuro-policy.”

Envisioning Brain Science for a Better Future

Ramos’ presentation coincided with the 75^th anniversary of the Dana Foundation. And while, she said, the organization has long been interested in how neuroscience intersects with society, its change in mission brings that goal front and center of its work.

“The decision was motivated by the recognition that there was a lot of funding in neuroscience research, primarily coming from federal funds, as well as the recognition that neuroscience research was accelerating at an incredible pace,” she explained. “It raises a lot of important ethical, legal, and societal questions.”

Ramos briefly described the three current sites under the Dana Center Initiatives, which span the Foundation’s key program areas of education, training, and public engagement. And while these programs focus on the impact of neuroscience in different ways, they all demonstrate the power of “community-driven” work, where scientists and educators connect and collaborate with all stakeholders to ensure their research is not only meaningful to the communities they serve, but can empower those communities to use neuroscience to improve their lives.

Ramos also discussed the results of a public opinion survey that Dana conducted in partnership with Research!America. She said the results strongly support that lay people are interested in brain science, which makes it only more important that scientists find ways to better engage with the public.

“The engine of science comes from public money,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important for research to have a connection with our communities…People want to know what we’re trying to do. They are amazed and interested in how the brain works and how we can develop new therapies for conditions that affect the brain. Even across the political spectrum, a majority [of respondents] agreed that it’s important to increase federal funding for brain research.”

Yet, even as the survey participants expressed their interest in brain research, most, Ramos said, “don’t feel like they know anything about it.”

“That finding helped us feel confident that [the Dana Foundation] was going in the right direction: emphasizing education, training, and public engagement around neuroscience and society issues,” Ramos stated.

Addressing the Elephant in the Room

Given recent federal cuts to medical and scientific funding, Ramos offered her thoughts on the future of the “social contract” that has been the backbone of academic and biomedical research since the 1940s.

“There was a very intentional decision by the federal government at that time to invest in science and technology for societal progress,” she said. “Not just for health, but for economic competitiveness, national security, and national flourishing.”

That social contract, Ramos stated, requires not only public trust, but a model that fosters cooperation between academic, government, regulatory, and private sectors. And, unfortunately, Ramos candidly said, that model is “under great duress at the moment.”

“If you damage [this model], the whole thing could collapse,” she said. “I think this is invisible to most people, but we can all be a part of making this more visible. We can tell people the stories about our connections to science…and build better bridges between the different research sectors to show everyone what academic science can be and what it can accomplish.”

Building Partnerships for the Future

Jongcheon Lim, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow at UTHealth and the Rice NeuroEngineering Initiative who attended the Meeting of the Minds event, said he was excited to learn more about the importance of ethics and policy in the context of neuroscientific works.

“I’m an engineer who works on making devices for neuroscientists and clinicians,” he said. “Medical policy is a big concern for translational researchers like us. I’m glad there are organizations like Dana that can help us understand what kind of efforts we need to make better medical policies and engage patients.”

Ramos, for her part, said she was excited by the response to her talk. She said there’s a “real hunger in academia to better understand how to knit together science and non-STEM disciplines like social sciences, ethics, policy, and law,” to bridge the gap between brain science and societal needs.

“The questions I keep hearing are, ‘What advice do you have for us? What are the pain points? How should we be thinking about ethics and policy as we do our work?’” she said. “That’s why it’s so important to be going out to different universities and institutions to talk about the NeuroSociety vision so they can find the best way forward.”

She added that these kinds of events are also important for the Dana Foundation to “road test” their ideas and projects.

“We think about these issues in our offices in New York, so we benefit when we can go to the labs and classrooms and reground everything in the reality of day-to-day research,” she said. “Neuroscience is about people’s brains, their minds, and their lived experiences. So, connecting with people, from the principal investigators to the students, helps us understand different perspectives, what researchers need from organizations like ours, and how to work together to overcome all the different challenges we face as we work to engage the communities we want our research to help.”