Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has donated $100 million to launch a private research organization in Seattle devoted to deciphering the links between our genes and our brain.

Allen is expected to formally announce the creation of the Allen Institute for Brain Science and its inaugural project, the “Allen Brain Atlas,” on Tuesday. The atlas aims to identify 10,000 genes per year; it will actually model the mouse brain, which shares 99 percent of genes shared with humans, making the findings applicable to humans.

Advisors will include Dr. James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA; Harvard University professor Dr. Steven Pinker, UCLA neurologist and anatomical brain mapper Dr. Arthur Toga; and Dr. Gregor Eichele, neurologist and director of the prestigious Max Planck Institute in Germany; Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne, now at Genentech Inc., and Caltech’s David Anderson, who uses DNA probes to study the molecular basis of fear.