Established in 2020, the FasterCures LeadersLink Program is a capacity-building program to support the personal development of an emerging cadre of leaders of nonprofit organizations that fund or conduct biomedical research. LeadersLink focuses on building participants’ leadership skills and professional network and addressing their top priorities through mentorship, a capstone project, a series of convenings, virtual collaboration, and access to Milken Institute events and networks.  

“We have the vast potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches, which creates an unprecedented opportunity to generate a new understanding of brain disorders, risk factors, and potential treatments. However, I wasn't seeing these concepts come together in a way that move the field forward.”

Kirk Nylen, Ph.D., is the managing director of neuroscience for the Baszucki Group. Nylen directs Baszucki Group’s strategic approach to neuroscience research and discovery. When he began LeadersLink he was deputy scientific director at the Ontario Brain Institute.  As part of his capstone, Nylen created the Canadian Narcoanalytics Scholar (CNS) Program, a postdoc program with the Ontario Brain Institute that brings computational expertise to large, open neuroscience datasets across Canada. With this goal in mind, Nylen partnered with large neuroscience research institutes to create a $3.62 million funding proposal for the CNS program. The CNS program has been fully funded and started accepting scholar applications in 2024.