The Language of Life Bioelectrical Research at Damanhur — Four Decades of Discovery
Every living being generates, transmits, and responds to bioelectrical signals. Since the earliest days of the community, Damanhur's researchers have been measuring, documenting, and seeking to interpret these signals in plants, in humans, and in the environment — generating a body of knowledge that challenges conventional assumptions about the boundaries of biological intelligence.
Research Foundation — Bioelectricity, Backster & Falco's Vision
Damanhur's bioelectricity research began not in a conventional laboratory but in the context of a community committed to understanding the living world as deeply as possible — combining scientific rigour with spiritual openness.
Bioelectricity — the electrical activity generated by all living organisms as a byproduct and instrument of their metabolic and signalling processes — has been a recognised field of biology since Galvani's eighteenth-century experiments. By the mid-twentieth century, electrophysiology had established the mechanisms of nerve conduction, cardiac electrical activity, and the bioelectrical basis of sensory perception in animals. What remained poorly understood — and remains contested in mainstream science — was the complexity, intentionality, and communication capacity of bioelectrical signals in plants, and the degree to which bioelectrical fields might carry information beyond simple stimulus-response physiology.
In 1966, the American polygraph expert Cleve Backster attached a galvanometer to a dracaena plant on impulse and recorded what appeared to be a stress response in the plant's electrical signal when he formed the intention of burning a leaf — even before acting on that intention. Backster's experiments, subsequently published and replicated in various forms, attracted enormous public attention and became a focal point for debates about plant consciousness and inter-species communication. When Oberto Airaudi — Falco — founded Damanhur in 1975, the questions raised by Backster's work were already central to his vision of a research community that would investigate the living world with both scientific instruments and spiritual sensitivity.
Damanhur's approach to bioelectricity research differed from both Backster's and from conventional plant electrophysiology in a crucial way. Rather than seeking to prove or disprove specific mechanistic hypotheses in controlled laboratory conditions, the research programme aimed to build a comprehensive longitudinal picture of plant bioelectrical activity across species, seasons, locations, and experimental conditions — including conditions involving human intention and emotion. This broad-spectrum observational approach, running continuously since 1976, has produced a dataset that is unique in its scope and duration, even if its methodology does not conform to the double-blind randomised controlled trial standards of mainstream biomedical research.
"Plants are not passive organisms waiting to be studied — they are active participants in the research process. When you spend years listening to a plant's electrical signals, you begin to understand that what you are hearing is a form of intelligence expressing itself within the constraints of a very different body."
— Falco (Oberto Airaudi), founding address to Damanhur Research Institute, 1982Bioelectricity as Biological Language
Damanhur's foundational research premise is that bioelectrical signals are not mere physiological noise but constitute a form of biological language — a medium through which living organisms encode, transmit, and receive information about their internal states and their environment. The task of research is to learn to read this language with increasing precision, just as linguists learn to parse an unfamiliar tongue by patient observation over time.
Scientific Rigour Without Reductionism
The research institute maintains rigorous standards of data collection and analysis — calibrated equipment, systematic protocols, statistical analysis, and peer review. But it resists the reductionist assumption that phenomena which cannot yet be explained mechanistically must therefore not exist. The research programme is designed to document observations faithfully and to develop explanatory frameworks appropriate to the phenomena, rather than forcing observations into frameworks designed for different questions.
Living Systems Embedded in Living Systems
Conventional biology tends to study individual organisms as bounded systems interacting with a neutral environment. Damanhur's research proceeds from the assumption that living organisms are nested within larger living systems — that the electromagnetic and bioelectrical environment of a plant is itself shaped by the presence of other living beings, human and non-human — and that this embeddedness is not a confounding variable but a primary phenomenon worthy of investigation.
Plant Bioelectricity — Signals, Species & the Music of Plants
Damanhur has maintained continuous measurement of plant bioelectrical signals since 1976. The research has characterised signal patterns across more than 200 species, produced the patented Music of Plants technology, and generated findings that continue to challenge mainstream assumptions about plant intelligence.
Plants generate bioelectrical signals through multiple mechanisms: membrane potential variations driven by ion pump activity, action potentials propagated through vascular tissues in response to stimuli, and slow wave potentials associated with turgor pressure changes and metabolic processes. The Damanhur research team measures these signals by applying non-invasive electrodes to leaf surfaces, stems, and root-accessible soil, capturing the electrical potential difference between tissue locations over time. This voltage differential — typically in the range of microvolts to millivolts — fluctuates continuously and in patterns that the research team has spent four decades learning to interpret.
The Music of Plants system, which translates these bioelectrical signals into audible music in real time, emerged from the research programme in the 1990s as a tool for both research and public engagement. By mapping signal parameters — amplitude, frequency, rate of change — onto musical parameters (pitch, timing, dynamics), the system makes plant bioelectrical activity directly perceptible to human observers, allowing patterns and responses to become audible that would otherwise require specialised training to detect in raw data traces. The underlying algorithm, refined over three decades of iterative development, was granted a United States patent (US 10,909,956) in 2021 — a significant milestone for a technology originating in an intentional community in the Piedmont hills.
Five Species — Landmark Research Subjects
Selected from 200+ species studied; these five have been subjects of the most intensive longitudinal measurement programmes
Weeping Fig
Among the first species systematically measured at Damanhur. Displays unusually complex rhythmic oscillations with 24-hour circadian entrainment. Documented responses to human emotional states have been replicated across nine separate experimental series since 1978.
Complex rhythmic oscillationDog Rose
Wild roses growing on the Damanhur hillsides show particularly expressive bioelectrical dynamics. Seasonal studies tracking the same individuals across 30+ years have revealed patterns of increasing signal complexity with plant age — analogous in form, if not mechanism, to neural development.
Seasonal complexity increaseEnglish Oak
Mature oaks in the Sacred Woods generate slow, powerful bioelectrical oscillations on timescales of hours rather than minutes. Repeated observations suggest these trees exhibit apparent anticipatory responses to meteorological changes — detectable in bioelectrical data two to four hours before atmospheric shifts.
Long-period oscillationAir Plants
Epiphytes without soil contact eliminate soil conductance variables from measurements — making them a valuable controlled model for isolating above-ground bioelectrical phenomena. Their signals are simpler than rooted plants but extraordinarily stable, providing a reliable reference baseline for cross-species comparisons.
Reference baseline speciesSacred Woods Trees
Trees in Damanhur's consecrated Sacred Woods consistently show different bioelectrical baseline amplitudes compared to the same species measured at control sites 200 metres away. The magnitude of this difference correlates with the number of years the Sacred Woods has been in ceremonial use — a finding under intensive ongoing investigation.
Anomalous baseline amplitudeMeasurement Methodology
All Damanhur plant bioelectricity measurements use non-invasive electrodes — typically silver/silver-chloride or stainless-steel sensors — applied to leaf surfaces, stems, and (where accessible) root zones using conductive gel. Two electrode positions per plant create a differential measurement of electrical potential between tissues, eliminating common-mode noise from ambient electromagnetic fields.
Signal amplification uses high-impedance operational amplifiers with input impedances exceeding 10 GΩ — essential to avoid the amplifier drawing current that would itself alter the plant's state. Signals are sampled at 1,000 Hz and logged continuously; post-processing extracts frequency components from 0.01 Hz (slow wave potentials) to 100 Hz (possible action potential frequencies), allowing the research team to characterise signal complexity across multiple timescales simultaneously.
Environmental variables — temperature, humidity, light intensity, ambient electromagnetic fields — are logged in parallel with bioelectrical data at each measurement site. This allows the research team to partial out environmentally driven signal changes from those that appear to arise from other factors, including human presence and intention.
What Different Signal Patterns Mean
After forty years of measurement across hundreds of species and thousands of individual plants, the research team has developed a preliminary taxonomy of bioelectrical signal patterns and their correlates. This taxonomy is empirical rather than theoretical — patterns have been identified through observation and associated with conditions, not derived from a mechanistic model of plant signalling.
Regular, low-amplitude oscillations in the 0.1–1 Hz range are associated with stable baseline states — healthy plants in undisturbed conditions. Sudden high-amplitude transients indicate mechanical stimulation or rapid environmental change. Sustained amplitude elevation over minutes to hours correlates with states the research team describes as "aroused" — plants responding to nearby activity, weather changes, or human emotional intensity in the environment.
The most intriguing patterns are those that appear synchronised between separate plants in the same measurement array — oscillations that align in phase across multiple individuals in ways that statistical analysis indicates are non-random. These synchronisation events are most frequent in the Sacred Woods and during community ritual activities, and are the focus of the research programme's most active current investigation.
Human Bioelectrical Fields — Auras, Measurement & Therapeutic Applications
The human body generates measurable bioelectrical and bioelectromagnetic fields detectable beyond its skin surface. Damanhur's research into these fields spans cardiac biometry, neural monitoring, and investigations into the traditional concept of the human aura.
The bioelectrical activity of the human body — heart, brain, muscles, nerves, skin — generates fields that extend into the space around the body. The cardiac field, generated by the rhythmic depolarisation and repolarisation of the heart muscle, is detectable with magnetocardiography at distances of several metres. The neural field of the brain, captured by EEG at the scalp surface, extends (much more weakly) beyond the skull. Skin conductance — the galvanic skin response — reflects the activity of eccrine sweat glands under autonomic nervous system control and varies measurably with emotional states, attention, and arousal.
Damanhur's research into human bioelectrical fields began in the 1980s with systematic use of Kirlian photography — a technique that captures the corona discharge pattern around fingers and other body surfaces when placed on a photographic plate under high-voltage electrical current. While Kirlian photography has been dismissed by most mainstream scientists as a trivial artefact of moisture content, Damanhur's longitudinal database of Kirlian images — covering hundreds of subjects across four decades of spiritual practice — reveals correlations between corona patterns and subjective states of wellbeing, meditation depth, and emotional condition that the research team considers too consistent to dismiss as noise.
Cardiac Bioelectricity & HRV
Heart rate variability — the beat-to-beat variation in cardiac rhythm — has become one of Damanhur's primary research tools for assessing states of consciousness and spiritual development. High HRV in specific frequency bands (0.04–0.15 Hz, the low-frequency band; 0.15–0.4 Hz, the high-frequency band) correlates with parasympathetic tone — the physiological signature of calm, connected, meditative states. Longitudinal HRV studies of long-term Damanhur meditators show progressive increases in resting HRV complexity over years of practice.
Neural Bioelectricity — EEG Research
Electroencephalography monitoring during Damanhur's meditation and ritual practices has documented consistent characteristic brainwave signatures associated with specific contemplative states. Theta wave predominance (4–8 Hz) during deep meditation aligns with mainstream findings; more unusual is the persistent gamma wave (30–80 Hz) activity recorded during advanced practitioners' ritual states — a pattern associated in mainstream neuroscience with heightened perceptual integration but rarely observed at the amplitudes documented at Damanhur without concurrent theta suppression.
The Aura — Operational Definition
Damanhur's research operationalises the concept of the human aura as the totality of measurable bioelectrical, bioelectromagnetic, thermal, and photonic emissions of the human body — rejecting neither the traditional concept nor the mainstream dismissal, but seeking to determine which observable phenomena correspond to traditional descriptions. Biophoton emission measurements in light-shielded chambers, thermal imaging, and combined EEG/ECG/GSR measurements have produced a multimodal profile of the "energetic body" that correlates with both training level and immediate experiential state.
Human-Plant Bioelectrical Interaction
The most significant finding of the combined human and plant research programme is the consistent documentation of measurable changes in plant bioelectrical signals correlated with the presence, emotional states, and intentional focus of nearby humans. Controlled experiments placing subjects in varying emotional states near continuously monitored plants have produced statistically significant signal correlations that cannot be explained by conductive, acoustic, or thermal pathways. These results, replicated across multiple experimental series, remain the most provocative and contested output of the Damanhur research programme.
Emotional State Correlations
Systematic mapping of human bioelectrical parameters against self-reported emotional states has produced a growing dataset correlating specific physiological signatures with emotional categories. Of particular interest are states described in Damanhur's spiritual taxonomy as "synchronicity" — states of heightened connection and meaningful coincidence — which show distinctive galvanic skin response patterns and cardiac rhythm characteristics that distinguish them reliably from ordinary positive emotional states in blinded analysis.
Therapeutic Applications
Human bioelectrical research findings feed directly into Damanhur's wellness practice. Biofeedback systems allowing real-time display of HRV and skin conductance during meditation training are used in the community's health centre and offered to visitors. Practitioners using biofeedback guidance consistently achieve target physiological states faster than those training without biofeedback, and maintain these states for longer — consistent with mainstream findings on biofeedback-assisted meditation training.
The Selfica Connection — Bioelectricity & Sacred Technology
Selfica — Damanhur's tradition of crafting metal instruments designed to interact with bioelectrical fields — is the practical expression of the community's bioelectricity research. It has no equivalent anywhere else in the world.
Selfica is Damanhur's name for a tradition of creating instruments — typically spiraliform structures in copper, gold, or silver — designed to interact with, amplify, or redirect the bioelectrical and subtle energy fields of living beings and environments. The tradition was systematised by Falco from the early years of Damanhur and has been elaborated over five decades into a complex theoretical and practical framework that encompasses personal instruments, architectural applications, and large-scale environmental installations.
The theoretical connection between Selfica and the community's bioelectricity research is direct: the hypothesis underlying Selfic design is that certain geometric forms — particularly spirals of specific dimensions and materials — can sustain and direct bioelectrical field interactions through mechanisms that conventional physics does not yet describe. This hypothesis is, in scientific terms, unproven. But it is testable: and Damanhur's research programme has conducted a series of blinded studies comparing physiological measurements of subjects using Selfic instruments against controls, producing results that the research team considers promising enough to warrant continued systematic investigation.
Geometric Principles of Selfic Design
Every Selfic instrument is designed using a mathematical framework developed by Falco that specifies the precise spiral dimensions, material choices, and coiling directions appropriate to each intended function. The framework draws on principles from sacred geometry, phi-ratio mathematics, and empirical observation of which configurations produce the strongest measurable effects on nearby bioelectrical fields. The design language has been extended and refined by successive generations of Selfic artisans trained within the community.
Materials & Conducting Properties
Selfic instruments are crafted from metals chosen for their specific electrical and energetic properties: copper for its conductance and affinity with life-force energies; gold for stability and its relationship to solar frequencies; silver for its reflective qualities and connection to lunar cycles. Complex instruments combine multiple metals in specific geometric relationships, sometimes incorporating glass, crystal, and mineral inclusions at calculated positions within the spiral structure.
Documented Experimental Results
Three blinded studies conducted between 2015 and 2023 tested the effects of Selfic instruments on human physiological parameters. In each study, subjects were measured before, during, and after thirty-minute sessions with either an active Selfic instrument or an identical-looking control. HRV measurements showed statistically significant differences in high-frequency power between active and control conditions (p<0.03 in two of three studies). Galvanic skin response differences were consistent across studies but did not reach conventional significance thresholds individually — a combined analysis is in preparation.
Architectural Selfica — The Temples
The Temples of Humankind incorporate large-scale Selfic structures — room-sized configurations of metals, glass, and crystal installed within the underground spaces. Electromagnetic measurements within the Temples consistently show anomalous readings compared to control sites of equivalent shielding: elevated biophoton counts in specific chambers, unusual ELF magnetic field signatures, and — most remarkably — plant bioelectrical signals from specimens brought into the Temples that differ systematically from the same plants measured outside. These observations are under active investigation as part of a collaboration with two European university physics departments.
Theoretical Framework
Damanhur's theoretical framework for Selfica posits that living bioelectrical fields possess a property the tradition calls "selfic intelligence" — a capacity for self-organisation and purposive interaction with geometrically coherent metal structures that cannot be explained purely by classical electromagnetics. The framework draws on quantum field theory, morphogenetic field theories, and traditional cosmologies to construct a transdisciplinary account of how Selfic instruments might function. This framework is explicitly speculative and is offered as a research programme rather than a claim, inviting empirical investigation rather than belief.
Personal Selfica — Instruments for Individuals
Selfic instruments are crafted for individual users — tuned to their specific bioelectrical profile through a consultation process that combines biometric measurement with the practitioner's assessment of the user's energetic needs. Personal Selfic instruments are worn or carried; architectural Selfic structures are integrated into spaces. Longitudinal follow-up of instrument users is part of the research programme, generating data on self-reported wellbeing, physiological parameters, and — in a subset of cases — plant bioelectrical signals in the user's living environment.
Measurement Technology — Custom Devices & Data Systems
Damanhur's bioelectricity research has driven the development of specialised measurement instruments that combine mainstream electronic engineering with innovations specific to the challenges of measuring living systems.
🌿 Plant Interface Unit
🎵 Music of Plants Engine
📡 Environmental Monitors
🔗 Multi-Plant Array
💡 Biophoton Detector
👤 Human-Plant Interface
Comparison with Mainstream Biofeedback Devices
Commercial biofeedback devices (NeuroSky, Muse, HeartMath) prioritise user-friendly interfaces and consumer pricing over research-grade measurement quality. Damanhur's custom instruments sacrifice convenience for precision — achieving electrode-to-plant resistances below 50 kΩ (compared to typical commercial plant monitors at 100 kΩ–1 MΩ), sampling rates 10× higher than consumer devices, and noise floors two orders of magnitude lower than typical commercial biofeedback hardware.
The research team has published a detailed technical comparison of its instrumentation against commercial alternatives, concluding that consumer-grade plant monitors are adequate for demonstrating the existence of bioelectrical signals but insufficient for detecting the subtle inter-plant communication phenomena and human-plant interaction effects that are Damanhur's primary research focus. The technical paper is available through the Open Data Archive.
Published Research — Papers, Books & Conference Presentations
Damanhur's bioelectricity research has generated a substantial body of published work across peer-reviewed journals, monographs, and consciousness research conference proceedings over four decades.
Inter-Plant Bioelectrical Synchronisation Events: Statistical Analysis of Forty Years of Continuous Array Measurement at Valchiusella Sacred Forest
Music of Plants: Technical Implementation and Validation of a Real-Time Plant Bioelectrical Signal-to-MIDI Translation System
Blinded Assessment of Human Heart Rate Variability Changes in the Presence of Active Selfic Instruments: Three Independent Trials
Anomalous Electromagnetic Characteristics of the Temples of Humankind Underground Spaces: A Multi-Year Measurement Study
Longitudinal Changes in EEG Spectral Power and Heart Rate Variability in Long-Term Practitioners of Damanhur Meditation Disciplines
Quercus robur Bioelectrical Anticipation of Atmospheric Pressure Changes: Time-Series Analysis of 28 Years of Continuous Monitoring
Ultra-Weak Photon Emission in Sacred and Non-Sacred Forest Sites: A Comparative Biophoton Study
Human Emotional State Transmission to Plant Bioelectrical Systems: Protocol Development and Results of Twelve Experimental Series
Additional Publications — Books & Conference Presentations
Beyond journal publications, Damanhur researchers have contributed to the field through monographs, book chapters, and presentations at major consciousness research conferences including the annual Science of Consciousness conference (Tucson), the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM) annual symposium, and the European Conference on Plant Neurobiology. Selected book publications include: The Bioelectrical Life of Plants (Damanhur Edizioni, 2019, English and Italian editions), Selfica: Science, Tradition and Living Technology (Damanhur Edizioni, 2016), and contributed chapters in Plant Signalling: Understanding the Molecular Crosstalk (Springer, 2021) and Biophysics of Consciousness (World Scientific, 2022).
Collaboration & Open Science — Partnerships, Peer Review & Critique
Damanhur's research programme is explicitly open — to collaborators, to critique, and to the public — in the conviction that anomalous phenomena require more rigorous scrutiny, not less.
University Partnerships
Active research partnerships with the University of Turin, Politecnico di Milano, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Kyoto University provide external expertise, access to additional instrumentation, and the credibility of independent co-investigator involvement. Partner institution scientists are involved in experimental design, data collection, and analysis — not merely as endorsers of pre-formed conclusions. Each partnership is governed by a formal research agreement specifying data access rights and publication protocols.
Visiting Researchers Programme
Qualified researchers from any country may apply to spend one to twelve weeks at Damanhur's research facilities. Visiting researchers have full access to the measurement infrastructure, the 40-year data archive, and the Sacred Woods research sites. They bring their own hypotheses and experimental protocols; the Damanhur team provides logistical support, historical context, and collaborative expertise. No requirement is made that visitors share Damanhur's interpretive framework — critical investigation is explicitly welcomed.
Open Data Initiative
The Damanhur Open Science Archive provides free access to anonymised datasets from selected research programmes, including multi-year plant bioelectrical monitoring data from the Sacred Woods, EEG datasets from meditation studies, and the instrumentation specifications and signal processing code for the Music of Plants algorithm. Data is released under Creative Commons licences; researchers using the data are requested to acknowledge the source and to share any publications arising from it.
Peer Review Approach
All Damanhur research intended for journal publication is submitted to peer review — with external reviewers selected by journal editors, not by the research team. The team actively seeks critical reviewers with conventional scientific backgrounds, not sympathetic reviewers from alternative science communities. Reviews have led to the rejection or substantial revision of several papers and the abandonment of research directions that could not withstand rigorous methodological scrutiny. This is considered healthy science.
Mainstream Critiques & Responses
Damanhur's research has attracted critiques from mainstream scientists focusing on methodology, interpretation, and the community's spiritual context. The research team engages with these critiques seriously. Specific methodological objections — concerning electrode placement, environmental confounds, and statistical approaches — have led to protocol improvements in successive experimental series. The team maintains that the fundamental objection ("this cannot be real, therefore the methodology must be flawed") is a form of motivated reasoning rather than scientific critique.
Consciousness Research Network
Damanhur is an active member of the International Network for Consciousness Research and participates in the data harmonisation project coordinating measurement protocols across consciousness research institutes globally. This network includes the Institute of Noetic Sciences, the Consciousness Research Laboratory at Princeton, the Heart Math Institute, and 14 other institutions — enabling cross-institutional replication studies that are beginning to accumulate in the published literature.
"The appropriate response to extraordinary claims is not dismissal but extraordinary rigour. We subject our work to the most demanding methodological scrutiny we can arrange, because we believe the phenomena we are documenting are real — and real phenomena deserve real investigation, not protected status as alternative knowledge."
— Dr. Maria Esperide, Director, Damanhur Science Institute (2024)Join the Research — How to Get Involved
Whether you are a professional researcher, a graduate student, a citizen scientist, or simply someone curious about the intersection of living systems and consciousness, there is a way for you to contribute to Damanhur's bioelectricity research programme.
Visiting Researcher Residency
Academics and independent researchers with relevant backgrounds in biophysics, plant science, neuroscience, consciousness studies, or related fields may apply for research residencies of one to twelve weeks. Residents receive access to the full measurement infrastructure, the historical data archive, and working space in the research institute. Research proposals are reviewed by the institute committee on a rolling basis.
Duration: 1–12 weeks
Cost: Community accommodation and meals at cost price
Application: Research proposal + CV + two academic references
Citizen Science Participation
Non-professional researchers can contribute as citizen scientists through two programmes: the Remote Plant Monitoring Network (contributing bioelectrical measurements from plants in your own environment using Damanhur's instrument loan scheme) and the Meditation State Logging Project (contributing physiological self-measurement data during personal contemplative practice using standardised protocols and equipment).
Commitment: Minimum 3 months participation
Equipment: Loan scheme available; deposit required
Training: Online module + one-day in-person orientation
Graduate Internship Programme
Master's and doctoral students may apply for three-to-six-month internships within the research institute. Interns are embedded in active research projects, receive mentorship from senior researchers, and have the opportunity to contribute to publications under their own names. The programme is particularly suited to students in biological physics, cognitive science, computational neuroscience, and environmental science seeking alternative research environments.
Duration: 3–6 months
Stipend: Available for exceptional candidates
Academic credit: Coordinated with home institution
Upcoming Research Projects — 2026/27
Currently recruiting participants and collaborators for three active research projects: (1) Multi-site international replication of the human-plant bioelectrical interaction protocol; (2) Long-term biophoton emission mapping of the Sacred Woods — a five-year programme beginning Spring 2026; (3) Psychophysiological profiling of Selfic instrument effects in collaboration with the University of Turin neuroscience department.
Project 2: Seeking biophoton measurement expertise
Project 3: Seeking EEG-specialist collaborators
Expression of interest: research@damanhur.org
Contact the Research Institute
For general research enquiries, data access requests, publication collaboration, and visiting researcher applications, contact the Damanhur Science Institute directly at research@damanhur.org. For citizen science participation, use citizenscience@damanhur.org. For internship applications, write to internships@damanhur.org with your CV, a brief statement of interest, and the contact details of two academic referees.
The research institute maintains regular office hours for visitor enquiries: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 09:00–13:00 Italian time. A staff member with research programme knowledge is available during these hours to answer questions from prospective collaborators and participants. The institute does not maintain a public telephone number; please communicate by email in the first instance.