1 Early historyrnIn 1963 the Howard Florey Laboratories were first established as a component of the Department of Phys-iology at the University of Melboe. The laboratories quickly expanded under the founding directorship of Dr. Derek Denton and the funds were obtained with the philanthropic assistance of Sir Ian Potter and Mr. Ken Myer to create a new building on the south-west cer University site. This enabled the building to be opened in August 1963. The Nobel laureate, Sir Howard Florey, well-known discoverer of the technique to mass-produce penicillin was pleased to lend his name to the new ini-tiative, and was present at its opening with the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, and other dignitaries. The Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine was more formally created as an Act of the Vic-torian Parliament in 1971. A more detailed description of these earlier days is given by the Founding Director in a publication in The Joal of Physiology (Fig.1) in 2013, a portion of this edition being dedicated to neuroscience papers from the Florey Institute.