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2014年度诺贝尔生理学和医学奖被颁发给在神经科学领域做出重要贡献的布里特.莫泽（May-Britt Moser）、爱德华.莫泽（Edvard I. Moser）夫妇，这也促使生物医药产业和生命科学领域对美国总统奥巴马去年宣布进行的一项名为"使用先进革新型神经技术的人脑研究"（Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, BRAIN）计划有了前所未有的关注。而最近美国国家健康中心正式启动了这一计划。最近NIH正式下拨了这一计划的第一笔研究经费，共计4600万美元。（相关阅读推荐：NIH宣布拨付BRAIN脑计划第一笔研究经费）这笔资金将用于资助总计58个研究计划。与此同时，谷歌公司也强势宣布将加入这一计划并为BRAIN计划提供数据存储和处理服务。
众所周知，目前生命科学研究与计算机技术的结合日趋紧密，而关于神经科学等最前沿的生命科学领域更是走向大数据时代，可以说每一秒钟，生物学家们都将产生大量的数据需要储存和处理。而此次谷歌公司的第一个任务就是和Allen Institute for Brain Science合作开发一个足以储存BRAIN计划中所有数据的计算机系统。这一系统不仅仅是作为一个超大号的"移动硬盘"，它还肩负着将这些数据进行可视化，并帮助生物学家构建"虚拟大脑"的重要使命。
今年来，谷歌公司似乎不再满足于作为一个IT巨头出现在世人面前，它通过旗下的投资公司和生物信息学公司不断深入生物技术产业领域，并在这一领域中占据了举足轻重的地位。可以预见，谷歌公司加入BRAIN计划将进一步巩固公司在生物技术产业的优势，并引发一场计算机技术和生物技术结合的改革。
详细英文报道：
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has kicked off the BRAIN Initiative by awarding $46 million to 58 projects. And Google ($GOOG) has come on board as a commercial partner to develop software and infrastructure to handle the petabyte-scale data sets the projects are expected to generate.
Google's first task is to team up with the Allen Institute for Brain Science to develop scalable systems for the anticipated data deluge. Collaborations with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus and several academic partners are also in the pipeline. The broad goal of the projects is to give the neuroscience community tools to help turn data into insights about the brain's circuitry and the underlying neurobiology of mental processes.
The collaborations move Google deeper into life sciences, a field in which it has expanded on multiple fronts in recent years. In 2014, the search giant has introduced Google Genomics, joined the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health and signed up to provide cloud computing resources to the DREAM Challenge, while also advancing its biotech startup Calico and investing in Flatiron Health. Google's role as an enabler of BRAIN echoes some of its work in genomics.
Other groups involved with BRAIN are also tackling the problem of how to handle the data. Carnegie Mellon University is addressing the topic as part of its $40 million commitment to BRAIN, notably by partnering with research institutes in Asia and Europe to create and analyze big data sets, as well as teach people computational approaches to neuroscience. Carnegie Mellon's funding is part of the $240 million foundations and universities have committed to BRAIN.
原文地址：http://news.bioon.com/article/6659666.html
