The Center of Research Excellence in Natural Products Neuroscience (CORE-NPN) is a research and educational program at the University of Mississippi on the Oxford campus. It is funded by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as one of its Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE).

The University of Mississippi was awarded a five-year $11 million grant in September 2006. It was the first COBRE award ever made to the Oxford campus, which allowed investigators to conduct state-of-the-art research to identify components and properties of natural products that affect the nervous system.

The five-year $10 million Phase 2 of the grant was awarded in Fall 2012.

CORE-NPN brings together researchers and scientists from the University of Mississippi in a variety of departments. Those departments may include Pharmacology, Pharmacognosy, Pharmaceutics, Medicinal Chemistry, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, and Biochemistry. The grant places an emphasis on junior investigator’s research, CORE investigators, principal investigators, research scientists, professors, and students interested in research to develop and hone their research programs and partner them with well-established senior faculty members who serve as mentors.