St. Louis is celebrating a milestone on its journey to neuroscience innovation. The NEURO360 initiative, spearheaded by BioSTL in collaboration with Washington University and other regional partners, has been selected as one of 71 teams advancing in the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) program. This recognition positions NEURO360 as a contender for up to $160 million in federal funding—funding that would transform the region’s neuroscience ecosystem, drive groundbreaking innovation, and create high-quality jobs.
According to Justin Raymundo, Vice President of Innovation Ecosystem-Building at BioSTL, and Eric Gulve, NEURO360 Engine interim CEO, this milestone underscores both the destination and the journey of NEURO360’s mission. The destination is clear: transforming St. Louis into a hub of innovation, scientific advancement, and product development. But the journey, they say, is equally vital, as it fosters meaningful and lasting impacts on people’s lives.
The destination for NEURO360, and all of the work of BioSTL, isn’t just about recognition for St. Louis; it’s about societal impact. With a potential $160 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) program, NEURO360 aims to address pressing societal challenges, from mental health to neurodegenerative diseases. "We don’t just want to be in the news for the sake of it," says Gulve. "We want to be in the news because we're translating discoveries into solutions that can alleviate suffering—whether it's helping diagnose and treat dementia, improving post-stroke rehabilitation, or finding alternatives to opioids for pain management- and improve well-being through advances such as disease prevention, accelerated recovery from injury or trauma, enhancing the capacity of individuals to learn, or developing computers that process information like the human brain."
Yet, the scope of NEURO360 goes beyond physical and mental well-being. It’s also about economic growth, equity, and ensuring that St. Louisans benefit from the scientific breakthroughs being pioneered in their own backyard. A core part of the initiative involves job creation, specifically targeting those who have been left out of previous tech booms. "We want to create industries here in St. Louis that provide meaningful employment, especially for people in communities that haven’t historically benefitted from innovation economies," explains Raymundo.
At the heart of this effort is the vision of unity—bringing together diverse stakeholders from academia, industry, community, government, and investment sectors. Rather than building isolated programs for individual universities or companies, NEURO360 is focused on fostering a regional, collaborative model. "Our goal is to have one program, one pot of money, and a merit-based competition to support the best ideas, regardless of where they come from," says Gulve. "It’s not about universities competing with one another for funding. It’s about St. Louis working together – including cross-disciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations; academia, industry, community organizations - to create global impact."
The NSF Engines program is particularly focused on "use-inspired research"—research that not only advances scientific understanding but is also likely to yield real-world applications with tangible societal benefits. This approach underscores the importance of translating academic discoveries into market-ready products and services, or developing impactful public policy recommendations. NEURO360’s leaders understand that there is often a long and difficult road between a groundbreaking university discovery and the point where an investor or company sees commercial potential.
St. Louis is well-positioned for this type of innovation. It boasts significant academic and corporate research and development expertise in the biosciences. Neuroscience research is broad and deep in our regional universities. Washington University, for instance, leads the nation in NIH funding for neurodegenerative disease research, and both St. Louis University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis are leaders in neuroscience and mental health research, respectively. However, despite these assets, translating these discoveries into commercial products has lagged due to the complexity of the central nervous system and the difficulty of pinpointing biomarkers.
That’s where NEURO360 steps in—connecting academic researchers, investors, and industry leaders to bridge the gap between discovery and commercialization.
Ultimately, NEURO360 is about more than just scientific breakthroughs; it’s about creating a lasting legacy. "BioSTL has spent more than 20 years building an innovation ecosystem in bioscience, and now we’re ready to apply that same expertise specifically to neuroscience," says Raymundo. "This is our chance to not only lead the nation but to improve the lives of people in our community and beyond."
In the end, it’s not just the journey or the destination that matters for NEURO360—it’s the transformative impact they will have along the way.
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