SBMT 501(c)(6) · WBMF 501(c)(3) · Since 2004
Every other organ has a map.The brain does not.
Since 2004, SBMT has convened the scientists, surgeons, engineers and governments drawing that map. The World Brain Mapping Foundation funds the part that reaches patients: veterans, children, and the regions no one else is serving.
Tax-deductible gifts go to the World Brain Mapping Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity. SBMT is a 501(c)(6) professional society.
The ecosystem
Two organizations. One joint initiative. One patient at the end of it.
A society cannot fund charity, and a charity cannot run a trade body. So we built both, and then we built the thing that only makes sense when they work together: the park where a finding stops being a paper and starts being a treatment.
501(c)(6) · Professional society
SBMT
Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics. Physicians, neurosurgeons, engineers, industry and students. The Neurotech convention, CME, BioSkills labs, journals, Neuroscience20, and a global network of more than 100,000 scientists.
Convenes the field
501(c)(3) · Public charity
WBMF
World Brain Mapping Foundation. The philanthropic engine: veterans' care, fellowships, and neurotechnology for the regions that have none. Tax-deductible gifts are made here.
Funds the mission
Joint initiative · SBMT and WBMF
BTIP
Brain Technology and Innovation Park. Where a validated discovery becomes a device, a therapy, a company, and then a patient who gets better. This is the end of the pipeline, and it is the reason the other two exist.
Brings the research to the patient
BTIP is a joint initiative of SBMT and WBMF. The society brings the science and the standards. The foundation brings the money and the mandate to serve people who cannot pay. Neither could do it alone.
Twenty years of congresses
This is what the network actually looks like.
Neuroscience20
Anyone can fund a lab. Almost no one can reach the G20.
Research changes medicine only when a government funds it, a regulator clears it and a health system pays for it. That is the bottleneck, and it is the one we were built to open. Neuroscience20 has travelled with the G20 for twelve years.
- 2014 Australia
- 2015 Turkey
- 2016 China
- 2017 Germany
- 2018 Argentina
- 2019 Japan
- 2020 Saudi Arabia
- 2021 Italy
- 2022 Indonesia
- 2023 India
- 2024 Brazil
- 2025 South Africa
- 2026 Miami, USA
Legislation and advocacy
We have carried the brain into Congress thirteen times.
Brain Mapping Day exists to put working neuroscientists in front of the people who write the budget. The 13th Annual Brain Mapping Day at the US Congress takes place on 26 March 2026, in Room 340 of the Cannon Building, Washington DC. We have held it every year since 2012, and we have taken the same argument to the California State Assembly and to the Canadian, Brazilian and Australian parliaments.
● 2004 · Approved by voters
Proposition 71
The California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act. SBMT was founded the same year, and we backed it.
- Passed 2 November 2004 with 59 percent of the vote
- Authorized $3 billion in state general obligation bonds
- Created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)
- Made stem cell research a state constitutional right
● November 2026 · On the ballot
Proposition 38
The Immunology Medical Research and Cures Initiative. SBMT supports it, and it is the argument we are carrying to Washington in March.
- $8.4 billion in state bonds for immunology and immunotherapy research
- At least $4.2 billion earmarked for cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's
- Grants only to California public and non-profit universities and non-profit research institutes. No for-profit companies.
- Any resulting therapy must be offered to California patients at 20 percent below the national average price
Board of Directors
Two Nobel laureates sit on our board.
Donors research who is behind an organization before they write a cheque. Here is the short answer: the man who worked out how memory is stored, and the man who worked out how neurons talk to each other.
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2000
Eric R. Kandel
Kavli Professor and Director, Kavli Institute for Brain Sciences, Columbia University. Senior Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
His work transformed the understanding of memory and learning at the level of the synapse, and it underpins most of what modern neuroscience assumes about how the brain stores anything at all.
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2013
Thomas C. Südhof
Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine.
His work on how neurons release neurotransmitters with millisecond precision is the foundation for research into autism, schizophrenia and neurodegeneration.
World Brain Mapping Foundation
Where a gift actually lands.
WBMF funds the work that has no customer: the patient who cannot pay, the student with no lab, the country with no neurosurgeon. Four programs, all live today.
Clinical translation
Veterans Health Program
Advanced neurotechnology diagnostics and therapeutics for veterans and wounded soldiers: brain injury, PTSD, chronic pain, delivered with DoD and VA partners.
Workforce
Fellows, Interns and the Kateb Neurotechnology Entrepreneurship Program
Training the next generation of neuroscientists, clinicians and neurotech founders, and giving them the room and the mentors to build in.
Global equity
ME+ and LA+ Brain Initiatives
Building brain mapping and neurotechnology capacity across the Middle East and Latin America, with governments, hospitals and universities in the region rather than around them.
Next generation
Kids Corner and Student Chapters
Neuroscience education for children and families, and student chapters that turn curiosity into a career pathway in brain health.
Watch the work
To change the future of neurotechnology on a global scale.Babak Kateb, MD, PhDChairman and CEO, SBMT and WBMF
Support WBMF
The brain does not wait for a budget cycle.
Every gift moves one thing from a paper into a patient. Give once, give monthly, or talk to us about a named program, a fellowship, or a multi-year commitment.
The World Brain Mapping Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. WBMF funds the work; SBMT, a 501(c)(6) professional society, brings the science.
For scientists, clinicians and innovators
Join SBMT
Publish, present and collaborate with a global membership across neuroscience, neurosurgery, engineering, AI and policy.
Become a memberFor companies and institutions
Sponsor or exhibit
Reach the people who decide what neurotechnology gets built, cleared, funded and adopted, at the Neurotech convention, at Brain Mapping Day and at N20.
24th annual neurotech event 2027 Neuroscience20 summit see more information on brain mapping day at the us congress (sponsorship not open yet for next event)