WisBusiness.com
UW-Madison researchers have received a $7.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to explore the potential of stem cells and natural growth factors to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Earlier this week, the university received a separate NIH grant worth more than $40 million. That money is for the university’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Research to come up with methods to improve the way biomedical and health sciences discoveries make their way into clinical trials, hospitals and doctors’ offices.
The newest grant, to be awarded over five years, will fund research aimed at finding novel therapies for treating a debilitating and nearly always fatal condition caused by the withering of motor neurons – the brain cells that control the body’s muscles.
An estimated 30,000 people in the United States suffer from ALS, and most patients die within three to five years of diagnosis. The new Wisconsin program will utilize both embryonic and fetal stem cells and will explore the possibility of stimulating healthy nerve cells to release growth factors and other chemicals to protect motor neurons.
See release at http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=105460
