The McKnight Brain Research Foundation

Mcknight sign on the MBI building

Then

With the start of the new millennium, the University of Florida Brain Institute, a world class $60 million building, was renamed the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida (UF MBI) to celebrate and commemorate a $15 million gift from the McKnight Brain Research Foundation (MBRF). Evelyn F. McKnight and her husband William L. McKnight’s interest in the effects of aging on memory inspired the Foundation’s establishment as a legacy of support to support brain research to alleviate the specific influence of cognitive decline and age-related memory loss

The award was the largest cash gift in UF history and it was matched by the state of Florida to help create a $30 million permanent endowment devoted to fundamental research on the mechanisms underlying the formation, storage and retrieval of memories, the impairments in these processes associated with aging, and the development of therapeutic strategies to help prevent and/or alleviate these impairments.

Now

Today the UF MBI is one of the nation’s most diverse neuroscience research centers. Its mission extends far beyond its physical walls and serves as a “transparent umbrella” connecting and supporting faculty members from other departments, centers and programs with concentrations in neuroscience research throughout UF’s 16 colleges.

Housed within the UF MBI, the Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities in which interdisciplinary faculty conduct leading-edge preclinical discovery and clinical translational research focused on understanding the brain aging and cognition.  

Imagine

Investigators in UF’s Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory, together with their MBI partners, join with the McKnight Brain Research Foundation in imagining a future in which all older adults maintain mental acuity and cognition across their lifetime.

Logo: McKnight Brain Research Foundation, beneath "preserving memory, enhancing life"