Recently, a group of neuroscientists, civic leaders and philanthropists gathered to discuss an idea that could reshape the future of Palm Beach County.
It’s called the Brain Coast.
For nearly a decade, Patrick McNamara—President and CEO of the Palm Health Foundation—has been beating the drum for this vision: to brand our region as a global hub for brain health, neuroscience research and education.
The goal is straightforward but ambitious: to make South Florida one of the world’s leading centers for brain science, brain health and neurological innovation.
It has been said that it takes a monomaniac on a mission to move big ideas forward. You need passion. You need commitment.
Patrick McNamara has both—in abundance.
The Carl Angus DeSantis Foundation recently invested in the Brain Coast effort because we like to make strategic bets on special people and bold ideas. The Brain Coast qualifies as both.
The vision is to harness the extraordinary neuroscience talent already present in our region to improve brain health, accelerate research and create an ecosystem that could have global significance.
The inaugural meeting of the Brain Coast Advisory Council brought together scientists, civic leaders and philanthropists to begin sketching a path forward.
We left excited—and hopeful that our community can make this vision real.
Years ago, when I served on the Business Development Board, I remember CEO Kelly Smallridge talking about branding our area as “Wall Street South.”
At the time, many people dismissed the idea. Palm Beach County is many things—but Wall Street South?
It sounded like a stretch.
But today hedge funds and financial firms are pouring into the county, and the phrase no longer sounds aspirational—it sounds descriptive.
That’s the power of civic vision when the underlying assets are real.
And in the case of the Brain Coast, the assets are substantial.
From Jupiter to Boca Raton, our community is home to an impressive constellation of institutions devoted to brain science and neurological health.
Among them are the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, the Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute at Florida Atlantic University, the Marcus Neuroscience Institute, Florida Atlantic University, University of Miami Health, Cleveland Clinic, Scripps Research, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and others.
Together they represent a powerful cluster of scientific talent and research capacity already working in our backyard.
Through our work with Max Planck Florida, FAU and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, we’ve had the opportunity to see some of this research up close. The effort devoted to understanding and improving brain health is remarkable.
Recently, we toured the Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute. We were blown away by the work being done in their labs under the leadership of Dr. Randy Blakely.
At last week’s advisory council meeting, neuroscientists from Miami, the United Kingdom and elsewhere discussed the possibilities for building a true Brain Coast ecosystem.
Joining us remotely were Susan Magsamen, author of a seminal book on neuroarts—an emerging field exploring how the arts can improve brain health—and Dr. Harris Eyre, a researcher who helped build a similar brain health ecosystem in Houston.
It was an exciting conversation and a reminder that the future of medicine will require collaboration across disciplines.
The timing could not be better.
With an aging population, the need to better understand and treat conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, dementia, substance use disorders and bipolar disorder is becoming more urgent by the year.
Brain health will be one of the defining health challenges—and opportunities—of the coming decades.
The Brain Coast initiative aims to position our region at the forefront of that effort.
There is still a great deal of work ahead. Building a true ecosystem will require coordination, collaboration and sustained commitment.
But leaving the meeting, we felt something important had begun.
The ingredients are here: talent, capital, passion and commitment.
It takes a village to move an idea forward, and last week the village gathered.
Magic happens when great minds collaborate.
The Brain Coast is still a vision.
But so was Wall Street South—until it wasn’t.
