Brain tissue coated in resin and sliced into pieces could help scientists understand Parkinson’s disease. Or, software engineers could use that data to teach a fruit fly to trade Bitcoin.
“There is so much about the natural world that we don’t fully understand, but to unlock those secrets research efforts must occur at a much greater scale,” University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine neurology professor Davi Bock wrote in a press release Thursday. “That’s what the new observatory will do.”
UVM announced Thursday that it received a $19 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build an observatory to empower connectomics research — mapping individual neurons and synapses of nervous systems. The National Connectomics and Ultrastructure Volume Observatory will, over five years, map mouse brains, shark eyes, parasite function and, eventually, the human brain.
About $16 million of the grant will go to Bock. The remaining $3 million is designated to fund support from University of California San Diego — where connectomics research is currently centered. The San Diego university’s Supercomputing Center and its National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, directed by professor of neurosciences and neuroengineering Mark Ellisman, will provide expertise and technology to support research at the observatory, according to the press release.
UVM was recognized as an R1 institution last year, designating it as one of the top research universities in the country. This grant is the newest step in UVM’s growing research initiatives, dean of the Larner College of Medicine and Chief Medical Affairs Officer Richard Page said in an interview.
“This is a big deal for the University of Vermont,” he said. “We’re really proud and I think underrecognized for the amount of research that has gone on at this university over the years.”
Bock has studied connectomics for two decades. His last seven years have been at UVM.
Connectomics allowed Bock and his colleagues to map a three-dimensional model of an adult fruit fly’s brain, which they made public in 2024. It was the first complete map of a complex brain, according to reporting by the New York Times.
The fly brain, which contains over 140,000 neurons, is only the first of these kinds of projects, Bock said.
“It’s become clear that the time has come to now apply this capability to a much broader set of questions and explore tissue types and cells and many new areas of biology,” he said in an interview.
Bock said he and his colleagues will be “pointing a very fancy flashlight at new targets” to better understand larger, more complex brains, such as those of humans. They are years out from mapping a human brain, Ellisman said. Instead, they’re starting small.
The observatory will pilot four research projects through their five-year grant, hoping to have data emerge in the next two or three years, Bock said. One will analyze how a mouse learns. Another will help understand how a shark can see in murky water. These studies, Page wrote in a press release, could allow for the innovation of “insights and therapies that have not yet been imagined.”
The grant, Page said in an interview, makes a difference in Vermont in many ways, including the economy, as research jobs are created.
“This is an amazing achievement for our state and region to be bringing this kind of center here to Vermont in service to the entire country,” he said.
Ellisman, from his office across the country, said that science is in a different “realm” from when he founded the microscopy and imaging research center at UC San Diego. This observatory, he said, is home to a new realm.
“We have an integration of the best scientists and the best facilities everywhere to answer important fundamental questions,” he said. “Vermont now has a big role in one of these national, integrated programs where the jewels in the crown of different areas of science can come together with modern technology to collaborate.”