St. Louis wants to turbocharge its neuroscience sector with the NEURO360 program

St. Louis is vying for a $160 million grant that leaders and academics hope will turbocharge the neuroscience sector and rectify entrenched health disparities throughout the region.

The effort is part of an application to be one of the next National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines.

The idea is to help assets in higher education, nonprofits, state and local governments and other organizations converge around developing a single sector ripe for innovation, said Justin Raymundo, vice president of innovation ecosystem building at BioSTL.

“Really to bring communities, largely left out of the tech boom at the turn of the 21st century, to create more concentrations of research discovery and see those discoveries turn into products, jobs [and] opportunities,” he said.

The region won a $1 million grant from the NSF last year to develop a strategic plan.

Sophie Proe / St. Louis Public Radio

Dr. Mati Hlatshwayo Davis, St. Louis' director of public health, speaks at an unveiling of the NEURO360 proposal earlier this month.

NEURO360, the St. Louis proposal, is led by Washington University and BioSTL. It aims to build upon the region’s existing prowess in neuroscience research and develop those discoveries into new products, treatments and approaches to medicine, said Eric Leuthardt, chief of Washington University’s division of neurotechnology and one of NEURO360’s principal investigators.

“We are at this inflection point,” he said. “As we understand the nervous system better, we are going to be able to address deep and pressing needs in the near future because we understand how the brain works.”

It can help spur better responses to conditions like depression, stroke and Alzheimer's that are related to the brain or nervous systems, Leuthardt said. And these advancements can form the basis for applications, companies and technology that can then spur local economic growth, he added.

“This understanding of the nervous system has broad scale ability to impact people’s lives, and it should translate to that,” Leuthardt said. “It should become real and tangible, whether it be a product, a drug, a change in policy or a new way of teaching children.”

At Wash U alone, Leuthardt said there are dozens of examples of research that are prime for commercialization and part of the NEURO360 program needs to include developing a pathway that gets innovations to the market. That includes factors like where to source capital, how to develop intellectual property or how to identify the entrepreneurs or companies who can develop great research into a commercial product, he said.

“It’s an embarrassment of riches in terms of knowledge and capabilities,” he said. “We don’t have to bring that in, we already have it. It’s really creating a structure to allow that next level to happen.”

Executed correctly, this approach of developing the St. Louis neuroscience sector could lead to career opportunities across the region in research, technology and manufacturing as well as in academic, startup or industry labs, Raymundo said.

And it’s a chance to intentionally include communities that have not always had an opportunity to participate in this sector before, said Natalie Self, Cortex’s senior vice president of equitable economic impact.

“We have talent in St Louis, that's not the issue,” she said. “The issue is that our talent is not connected to the systems that already exist, and it's incumbent upon large institutions like NEURO360, like Cortex, to build those connections more transparently.”

Sophie Proe / St. Louis Public Radio

Audience members clap as St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones takes the stage to speak on Sept. 4 during the unveiling of the NEURO360 proposal.

NEURO360 can create intentional pathways for people to find work in neuroscience labs, helping to run experiments, recruit participants and help with paperwork along that process, Self said. There are also the tools, drugs and interventions developed from neuroscience research that will need workers to implement in the regional community, Self said.

“We need folks that can get a certificate at a community college to work with people like me who happen to have been diagnosed with substance use disorder in the past to help us navigate that condition, which is all in the brain, and help us so that we can participate in the workforce,” she said.

Beyond targeted workforce development for historically disadvantaged areas, NEURO360 aims to serve those communities through specific and targeted research that responds to prevalent medical issues in them, Self said.

“We are talking to the community on the front end to identify the top focus areas, and then we’re finding the researchers that can address that,” she said.

Alzheimer’s is one condition already identified by local majority-Black communities that will be one of the focuses of the neuroscience engine, Self said.

At least up front, Forward Through Ferguson Executive Director Annissa McCaskill finds this focus on upfront community engagement by some of the key leaders involved in NEURO360 refreshing.

“I feel like they have a genuine care to ensure this brings communities under the umbrella of neuroscientific study as well as implementation (in a way) that I have not seen in my lifetime being in St. Louis,” she said. “I moved here in 1996, and the outreach (now) is very different than what I remember when I first got here.”

McCaskill is personally familiar with parts of the region’s neuroscientific sector, having raised her son who wasn’t properly diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome until he was 11, she said.

“He was just stated to be immature,” McCaskill said. “But with his white peers, there was an immediate tracking of providing resources, getting tested, getting special services, whereas I, as his parent, personally paid for him to be tested outside of the school district.”

This is a familiar experience for many Black and brown families in the region, she added. Or there is a rush to diagnose, and a child is unnecessarily placed on medication or in a special education setting, she said.

Neurodiversity may not appear the same way for people of different racial backgrounds, making research on the topic imperative, McCaskill said.

But it’s not trivial to study given the way historically marginalized communities have been excluded from or exploited by the medical system in the past, said Andwele Jolly, CEO of the St. Louis Integrated Health Network.

“Their ideas have not always been represented in research or in the design of policy,” he said. “If those voices are not embedded up front, then you get further marginalization, further medical mistrust and lack of participation or inclusion in research design.”

But it can help when organizations like McCaskill’s and others outside the traditional health institutions are involved in the development and implementation of the region’s proposal to the NSF, she said.

“When you bring those to the table who specifically state they are there for accountability, I think that's a pressure, but a positive pressure,” McCaskill said. “We are able to speak truth to power and to be representative of communities that are often not placed at the table.”

But McCaskill cautions building trust and engagement with Black and brown communities will require sustained commitment.

This is an element that Self, Raymundo and others identify, and there is a commitment to further building the neuroscience sector in St. Louis more even if the region doesn’t win the $160 million grant from the NSF.

“Our community is already committed,” Raymundo said. “I think that train has somewhat left the station and we’re all in on neuroscience.”

For now though, NEURO360 leaders have submitted a preliminary proposal to the NSF and will find out in October if they will be invited to submit a full application next February.