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).

MDA has awarded a grant totaling $347,094 over three years to François Berthod, a professor in the department of surgery at Laval University in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The funds will help support Berthod's study of the underlying molecular mechanisms and disease process in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

ALS is characterized by the degeneration of motor neurons (nerve cells that control muscle movement) in the spinal cord and brain.

Ellen Barrett, professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Miami (Florida) Miller School of Medicine was awarded an MDA grant totaling $297,102 over three years. The funds will support Barrett's study of the disease process and potential therapies in familial, or inherited, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

MDA has awarded a clinical research training grant totaling $180,000 to clinical research fellow James Berry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. The grant will support completion of a two-year fellowship during which Berry plans to study the effects of a drug called ISIS-333611 in familial, or inherited, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease).

Michael Benatar, associate professor of neurology and epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta, received an MDA grant totaling $525,000 to continue research into the early stage of FALS — familial, or inherited, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease) — prior to symptom onset.

MDA awarded a research grant totaling $330,000 to Stanley H. Appel, chair of the department of neurology at the Methodist Neurological Institute (MNI) in Houston, to study the protective effects of a specific class of immune system cells in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

MDA has awarded a research grant totaling $330,000 over three years to Jiou Wang, assistant professor of biochemistry & molecular biology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The new funds will help support Wang’s study of the molecular mechanisms underlying ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease).

MDA has awarded a development grant totaling $180,000 over a period of three years to Junping Xin, research associate at the Neuroscience Institute, Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, and Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Administration Hospital in Hines, Ill. The funds will help support Xin’s research into the possible effects of immune system dysfunction in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

Youngjin Lee, postdoctoral associate in the department of neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore was awarded an MDA development grant totaling $179,997 over three years. The funds will support Lee's study of the role of a protein called MCT-1 in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, was awarded an MDA development grant totaling $180,000 over a period of three years to study the roles of two proteins, TDP43 and FUS, in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

ALS-causing mutations in the genes for two RNA binding proteins, TDP43 and FUS, appear to cause disruption in the processing of RNA (the chemical step that directs protein synthesis).