W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
New Brunswick, NJ
The W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University is one of the leading neuroscience education centers in the world. The laboratory and research center was designed as a collaborative and barrier-free environment for the study of injured spinal cord tissue regeneration.
daSILVA worked closely with Dr. Wise Young, a preeminent spinal injury researcher, to design systems and equipment that suit the lab’s teaching and working modalities. Because other centers for neurological research are scattered throughout the world, integrating high-speed communication into the design was essential. The neuroscience center is the most advanced computer and internet facility at Rutgers University; it includes eight stations for real-time video conferencing and, through a proprietary internet program, hundreds more may audit conferences and lectures. Specially designed perimeter downdraft tables were used to exhaust 85 percent of the air. This yielded a fully open space conducive to collaboration among specialists and patients that are normally segregated. The lab is used primarily for rat research.