Founded in 1987, the Vollum Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research is a privately endowed research unit of Oregon Health & Science University that is dedicated to the study of the brain and nervous system at the molecular level. The institute is named after Howard Vollum, a scientist-engineer who co-founded Tektronix Corp. in 1945 and was drawn to the neuroscience laboratories at Oregon's medical school where his oscilloscope could be applied to research.
Among the faculty at the Vollum Institute are four investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and two members of the National Academy of Science, two of the most prestigious individual designations in science.
The Vollum attracts more than $15 million per year in funding for its basic research and training programs, with the majority of this funding going toward individual awards from the National Institutes of Health. The success of the Vollum in securing NIH funding ranks it in the top two medical school neuroscience programs in the country.
