It’s not that NERF started in a garage – but the big dream vibe was definitely there. “The whole concept began when Gilbert Declerck, at the time director of the micro- and nanotechnology research institute imec, and I got together and started talking 12 years ago,” says Jo Bury, managing director of VIB. “We were both leading strategic research centers in Flanders, but in completely different areas – VIB in life sciences, imec in micro-electronics. We both shared this starry-eyed ambition of fusing the state of the art in biology with the cutting edge in micro and nanotech.”

Intriguing concept, but a bit too broad. Their discussion got more and more detailed as they reflected on which fields in biological sciences would be transformed most dramatically by electronics.

“Of course, that’s when we arrived at the brain and the nervous system, a complex network of pathways for electrical signals in the body,” Bury continues. “Neuroscientists at VIB were already growing brain cells in the laboratory, and we wondered, ‘can we grow actual neuronal circuits in vitro and measure their electrical activity in real time?’ It really fired us up.”

The first thing to do was to get the start-up money together to turn this moonshot into practice. We estimated we would need at least 20 M€ to launch the initiative and bring it to maturity. To do so, we joined forces with three founding institutions: imec, KU Leuven and VIB. The initiative received support from the Flemish government as well. The next step was to set up a systems neuroscience lab where we could attract top international scientists in the field.” Bury explains. “Our very first principal investigator at NERF was Emre Yaksi, a promising scientist from MIT, working on the olfactory system in zebrafish; the start of an exciting but bumpy road.”

Bury: “We were very fortunate that truly world leaders in this field were excited and inspired by our vision and became members of the international scientific advisory board of NERF, to help us in recruiting the right scientists and develop the scientific plans and focus of NERF. The SAB experienced the ambitious set up of NERF as the well-known Bell-labs set up of AT&T (now Alcatel-Lucent) in the early 1940-50s.”

The multidisciplinary team began by studying brain inputs – vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch – to investigate what responses these inputs caused on the level of the entire system, which involves multiple neurons interacting and creating outputs in the form of memories and reactions.

This three-party, double-faceted approach combining neurobiology and nanotechnology immediately proved its worth – and its distinctiveness. “NERF is unique in this regard,” asserts Sebastian Haesler, current director of the research center. “The formula works: the technology we develop here is used by systems neuroscientists all over the world.”

Two other VIB research centers are deeply involved in the basic research required to support NERF’s ambitions. The VIB-UAntwerp Center for Molecular Neurology focuses on neurodegeneration and human genetics, with researchers investigating the genetic mutations behind neurodegenerative diseases. The VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research is concerned with the next step: the cellular and molecular mechanisms that physically cause diseases.

“NERF is the third step, bridging the domains of neurobiology and nanotechnology in order to more deeply understand how neurons function in the human brain,” Haesler adds.

Today NERF houses six research groups with scientists of diverse backgrounds: bio-engineers, geneticists, neurobiologists, physicists, mathematicians… All groups are headed by leading scientists, recruited internationally from Harvard, MIT, FMI, Max Planck, etc. Principal investigators at NERF have been responsible for several key breakthroughs over the years, leading to the institute’s worldwide reputation as a cutting-edge neuroscience player.

“One of these breakthroughs lies in research spearheaded by Karl Farrow aiming to uncover the interconnections between different neurons, such as those in the eyes, which detect light and dark, and those in the brain responsible for translating those signals into images that we can interpret,” says Haesler. “Our scientists discovered completely new circuits in this regard, publishing their results in Neuron, the top journal in the field.”

From today’s vantage point, the history of NERF seems starred with success stories. “But getting the ball rolling and keeping it going was really tough work,” Bury reflects. “There were many hurdles in our path, from introducing biology to an organization unused to working with living organisms, to combining completely different cultures. But we adapted and created a new environment, completely from scratch. I have to say I’m very proud of how far we have come together.”

Bury hasn’t lost his “dream big” attitude, however, and Haesler is on the same page. “So, now we can accurately measure and record the activity of thousands of neurons in a living brain. But here’s a wild idea: what about individually measuring the activity occurring in the different synapses of a single neuron at once?” Bury wonders. “Or,” adds Haesler, “what about investigating the molecular biology and genetics behind the formation and functioning of our nervous systems – is this environmentally driven or built into our DNA? We still have so many questions!”