Core Facilities

These core facilities integrate the various research goals of members of the Picower and McGovern Institutes, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Broad Institute. The various Picower, McGovern, Brain and Cognitive Science and Broad laboratories have expertise and experience with different experimental protocols which, when combined in a collaborative manner, will result in accelerated progress in these respective fields.

CLARITY Core Facility

CLARITY makes tissue, like the brain, completely see-through. With a clear brain and additional biological techniques, an exceptionally detailed map of neuronal pathways can be made, which had been inaccessible even from our best technologies a few years ago. With this enhanced resolution of brain anatomy, neuroscientists are now able to look for the microscopic differences between healthy and dysfunctional brains. CLARITY further weds basic research to clinical practice, providing new views on biopsied and post-mortem human samples.

An image on the left of red and green flourescent blood vessels amid a field of blue cells on a black background fades into an image on the right of a woman sitting at a lab bench wearing a mask, lab coat and gloves.

iPS Core Facility

The advent of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) has heralded a new generation of clinical and basic research into human disorders. Patient-derived skin fibroblast cells are reprogrammed into iPS cells, which allow researchers to directly examine a wide variety of diseases directly in human cells.