User:Tkessler45/Center for Visual Sciences

The Center for Visual Sciences (CVS) is a virtual central resource at the University of California at Davis, United States, focused on boosting collaboration in and funding of research in the visual sciences. The center serves, in part, as a bridge between vision researchers at the Center for Neuroscience and Ophthalmologists at the UC Davis Medical Center. Research spans both the clinical and basic sciences, with interests ranging from molecular genetics to human visual perception.

History
The Center for Visual Sciences is one of the newest additions to the University of California at Davis's "center"-based strategy for focusing areas of research. This strategy, which began in the mid-1980's, was an effort to bring scientists together from various academic departments in order to use common resources including shared research space and facilities. The first of these academic centers was the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, which was launched in 1986, and which has since grown to house more than 40 investigators.

The success of the Center for Neuroscience led to the creation of several additional centers, including the Genomics Center, the Center for Comparative Medicine, the Center for Mind and Brain, and the Center for Genetics and Development. Following the establishment of these facilities, and given the increasing growth in the visual sciences field (as mentioned by NIH director Francis Collins at the 40th anniversary of the NEI), UC Davis established the Center for Visual Sciences, which was designed to promote vision research at UC Davis, and in part provide collaborative opportunities between basic neuroscientists and clinical researchers from the UC Davis Medical center situated in Sacramento.

Unlike other centers at UC Davis, the Center for Visual Sciences is unique in that it is not housed in any particular facility at UC Davis, and instead exists as a virtual portal for organizing meetings and events, and funding for various vision-based research performed at UC Davis facilities.