MBF Bioscience receives NIH funding to support innovative research program on the peripheral nervous system
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MBF Bioscience Williston, VT – January 9, 2019 – MBF Bioscience is pleased to announce our participation in the Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC) program. Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this extensive research initiative is a vast collaborative effort, which aims to deepen the understanding of how the peripheral nervous system impacts internal organ function.
“We are honored to be working in collaboration with over 40 research teams in the United States and around the world who are making revolutionary discoveries about how the network of nerves located outside the brain and spinal cord affect organs such as the heart, stomach, and bladder, and what role these nerves play in diseases like hypertension and type II diabetes as well as gastrointestinal and inflammatory disorders,” says Jack Glaser, President of MBF Bioscience.
To facilitate this important research, MBF Bioscience will provide the collaborating research scientists with both software and support. Specifically, we will provide image segmentation tools developed to handle large and diverse amounts of scientific image data. Software applications such as Neurolucida 360® and Tissue Maker™will enable researchers to image and analyze nerves, tissues, and entire organs in 2D and 3D.
“Representing the innervation patterns accurately and robustly is an essential contribution to the generation of representative models that can be used for simulations. We are working with our partners at the University of Auckland, under the direction of Professor Peter Hunter, to create these models for each organ system that will be an enduring resource for scientists for years to come,” says Susan Tappan, Scientific Director at MBF Bioscience.
Researchers involved in the SPARC program are making important advances in health and medicine, which may lead to the development of new therapies for managing an array of illnesses and disorders. Some examples of research areas include subcutaneous nerve stimulation for arrhythmia control, sensory neuromodulation of the esophagus, and mapping of the neural circuitry of bone marrow. We are thrilled about this opportunity to work in partnership with such an impressive array of research teams on this ground-breaking project.
About MBF Bioscience
MBF Bioscience creates quantitative imaging and visualization software for stereology, neuron reconstruction, vascular analysis, C. elegans behavior analysis, and medical education—integrated with the world’s leading microscope systems—to empower research. Our development team and staff scientists are actively engaged with leading bioscience researchers, and constantly work to refine our products based on state-of-the-art scientific advances.
Founded as MicroBrightField, Inc. in 1988, we changed our name to MBF Bioscience in 2005 to reflect the expansion of our products and services to new microscopy techniques in all fields of biological research and education. While we continue to specialize in neuroscience research, our products are also used extensively in pulmonary, cardiac, kidney, cancer, stem cell, and toxicology research.
Our commitment to innovative products and unrivaled customer support has gained high praise from distinguished scientists all over the world and resulted in MBF expanding into a global business with offices in North America, Europe, Japan, and China. Our flagship products, Stereo Investigator® and Neurolucida®, are the most widely-used analysis systems of their kind.
About SPARC
Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) program that focuses on understanding peripheral nerves — nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body — and how their electrical signals control internal organ function. Methods and medical devices that modulate these nerve signals are a potentially powerful way to treat many diseases and conditions, such as hypertension, heart failure, gastrointestinal disorders, type II diabetes, inflammatory disorders, and more.
