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# UVM Wins $19 Million for National Brain-Mapping Hub
- URL: https://www.theamericanquorum.com/state-news-vermont-2026-09-24-a/
- Published: 2026-09-25T01:25:29.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-25T01:25:29.000Z
- Description: University of Vermont will lead a $19 million NSF effort to build a national connectomics observatory, combining electron microscopy, AI and supercomputing while directing most of the five-year grant to Burlington.
- Author: News Desk
- Tags: Tech, Vermont

The University of Vermont will become the national coordinating hub for a $19 million, five-year effort to expand access to ultra-high-resolution biological imaging, placing Burlington at the center of a new research network that combines electron microscopy, artificial intelligence and supercomputing.

The [project](https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/uvm-launches-19-million-national-observatory-unlock-secrets-neurobiology?ref=theamericanquorum.com), funded by the National Science Foundation, will create the National Connectomics and Ultrastructure Volume Observatory. UVM says approximately $15.68 million will support neuroscientist Davi Bock’s work in Vermont, while $3.32 million will fund contributions from the University of California San Diego and its supercomputer center.

The award is consequential for Vermont on two levels. It directs most of a major federal science investment to the state’s flagship university, with the prospect of research jobs and training opportunities. It also gives UVM responsibility for designing a national resource intended to make specialized imaging available to researchers who lack access to the small number of laboratories now capable of such work.

## From tissue samples to petabyte-scale maps

The observatory’s planned workflow begins with biological tissue preserved in resin and cut into thousands of ultrathin slices. A high-throughput electron microscope at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine will capture the images. Computers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center will assemble them into three-dimensional volumes, while AI tools identify cell boundaries, trace neurons and distinguish structures inside cells.

Those datasets will be measured in petabytes, and the Vermont Advanced Computing Center will help provide storage and processing. UC San Diego’s National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research will contribute sample preparation, advanced instruments and higher-resolution follow-up imaging. The five-year grant funds the design, testing and pilot datasets for the observatory rather than a fully mature permanent facility.

The approach builds on Bock’s role in the first complete wiring map of an adult fruit fly brain. The 2024 [Nature paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07558-y?ref=theamericanquorum.com) described a brain containing more than 130,000 neurons and tens of millions of synaptic connections. The new program is meant to adapt that type of connectomics pipeline to a wider range of biological questions, not to promise an imminent human-brain map.

## Four tests before a broader buildout

Four pilot projects will test the system. Researchers plan to study how learning changes connections in the mouse hippocampus, compare retinal circuitry across species, examine how the parasite *Toxoplasma gondii* crosses the blood-brain barrier and map structures inside single-celled protists. The mix is designed to show whether one shared pipeline can handle different organisms, sample sizes and scientific questions.

Local [reporting](https://vtdigger.org/2026/09/24/uvm-receives-19m-grant-to-build-a-national-neuroscience-observatory/?ref=theamericanquorum.com) says UVM leaders expect the grant to support research employment and strengthen the university’s growing research profile. The project also includes undergraduate teaching materials, virtual-reality resources for high schools and training for biomedical engineering master’s students.

The practical benchmark will be whether UVM and its partners can turn enormous collections of microscope images into usable, shareable scientific data. If the pilots work, the team expects to finish with an implementation plan for a larger national observatory—giving Vermont an enduring role in a field where progress depends as much on computing and data management as on the microscope itself.