Jasna Kriz, associate professor in the department of psychiatry and neuroscience at Laval University, Quebec City, Canada, was awarded an MDA research grant totaling $445,086 over a period of three years to help refine and describe a new mouse model that will enable scientists to visualize different aspects of the disease process in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

MDA awarded $294,183 over three years to Vasanthi Jayaraman, an associate professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. The funds will help support Jayaraman’s study of the molecular mechanisms underlying motor neuron death in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

MDA has awarded a research grant totaling $202,508 over a period of three years to Raymond Grill, assistant professor in the department of integrative biology and pharmacology at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston. The funds will support testing in the SOD1 mouse model of an experimental combination drug treatment in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

MDA has awarded a research grant totaling $429,983 over three years to Don Cleveland, departmental chair of cellular and molecular medicine; professor of medicine, neurosciences, and cellular and molecular medicine; and member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in La Jolla, Calif. The funds will help support Cleveland’s research into the connection between mitochondria and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

MDA awarded $375,000 to Daniela Zarnescu, assistant professor in neuroscience at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz., to conduct gene and drug discovery research in a drosophila fruit fly model that carries a mutation in the TDP43 gene associated with a genetic form of human ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

MDA awarded a grant totaling $347,832 to Shanthini Sockanathan, associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, for research into the molecular causes of nerve cell, or motor neuron, degeneration in diseases including ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

MDA awarded $358,653 to Wilfried Rossoll, assistant professor at Emory University in Atlanta, for research into the effects on nerve cells, or "motor neurons," of toxic TDP43 protein, implicated in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

Daniel Offen, head of the neurology laboratory at Tel-Aviv University, Israel, received an MDA grant totaling $359,700 for research into a combined cell and gene therapy approach for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

MDA awarded Albert La Spada, chief of the division of genetics in the department of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego, $330,000 to study what causes nerve cells called motor neurons to die in spinal-bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA) and other neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

MDA awarded a grant totaling $345,000 to Jean-Pierre Julien, professor at Laval University, Canada, for research into genetic variations in a protein called chromogranin B (CHGB) that has been shown to modify disease risk and hasten onset in a type of familial ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).