While I'm talking about buildings, I want to take a diversion much further ahead. My second tour at the NIH, beginning I think in 2010 or so, was as Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders [and Stroke], and by that time called and spelled NINDS. I, together with Steve Hyman, who was then Director of the Mental Health Institute, generated a thought that it would be good to bring the neurosciences together. This, after all, was the spirit of the NIH the first time I was there.
The Lab of Neurophysiology, which was headed by Wade Marshall, had members who were interested in movement; they were interested synaptic biology, interested in mental health, interested in vision. They were all together at joint seminars and were not far apart physically. But over the years, the 20 or 30 years, they have grown apart. I think because different interests, non-science interests, interests in the public and in Congress. Wanted their own institute, they wanted mental health, they wanted aging, they wanted the infectious disease, they wanted their own separate thing, their own budget that they can champion for their constituents. We just wanted to bring all the neuroscience back together, and proposed a new building named the John Porter Neuroscience Centre. That got the attention of the NIH officials and the government, and they agreed to it.
And that building was put up long after I finished. I left the NIH to come to Harvard again, but I was asked to come back for the opening ceremony. And there were beautiful images of it, named for John Porter, who was the senator of the time, and very effective in raising money for the NIH. It contained about eight different institutes. Everybody seems very happy there. I think everybody forgot that I was there and did anything. Every once in a while, I remind people who were there, you wouldn't be here if we didn't have this idea. But it's a beautiful building and it's a beautiful idea and that's what I liked, here at the Simons Foundation – bringing people together who are in seemingly disparate areas. That's never more evident than in the work the foundation is doing in autism, where we brought together basic physiologists, biophysicists, clinicians.
