MDA has awarded a research development grant totaling $180,000 over three years to Adrian Israelson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla, Calif. The funds will help support Israelson’s study of the underlying mechanisms governing motor neuron (nerve cell) death in SOD1-related familial ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

Israelson noted that mutant SOD1 has been shown to inappropriately associate with the cellular "energy factories," called mitochondria that are responsible for generating the power to run all cellular processes — but only in nervous system cells.

He previously has demonstrated in cell culture and in an ALS rat research model that mutant SOD1 binds directly to a key protein channel called VDAC1, which controls the import and export of chemicals required by mitochondria for power production. He also has shown that the misfolded portion of mutant SOD1 that is present in spinal cord mitochondria binds to the VDAC1 channel, inhibiting its conductance and compromising the energy supply for motor neurons.

Israelson's new work will focus on the ways in which mutant SOD1 protein associates with mitochondria, and whether and how that interaction affects the energy factories' function, possibly leading to motor neuron death. In addition the data may shed light on how modification of mutant SOD1 misfolding and the protein's association with mitochondria might affect mutant SOD1 toxicity.

Findings from these studies may provide valuable insight needed for development of therapies that either slow or prevent the degenerative process in ALS.

"Generous funding from MDA is very important," because of the Association's commitment to stopping rare diseases, Israelson said. "Thanks to the support of MDA, we’re able to keep investigating neuromuscular diseases that otherwise might go underfunded and unstudied."

Funding for this MDA grant began February 1, 2011.