Professor, Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience
Professor, Department of Pathology
Professor, The Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology
Director, Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center
A Message from the Director
One could readily, and I believe successfully, argue that the topic of fetal and early postnatal development of the human brain is one of the most important, yet least studied areas of Neuroscience and Pediatrics. The developing brain, both before and after birth, is sensitive to many insults – from genetic mutations causing disease, to infections, trauma, environmental toxins, and so on. Yet while vulnerable, the immature brain is at the same time remarkably malleable and under proper circumstances may respond to treatments designed to overcome early deleterious events. The key to such intervention is an expanded scientific knowledge of the biology of human brain development and of the changes that normally occur during the early postnatal period. While dramatic progress has been achieved in many areas of developmental brain research, much, much more needs to be learned, and then applied in translational studies with the goal of preventing or correcting intellectual disability. In this new era following the Einstein-Montefiore merger, opportunities for enhancing translational research between basic scientists in the IDDRC with our clinical partners at Montefiore have never been greater. The Rose F. Kennedy IDDRC will continue to strive to establish Einstein-Montefiore in a leadership role in New York City and the nation for its research on pediatric brain development and intellectual disability disorders.