USA Researcher Wins $300,000 Grant For Alzheimer’s Study

Dr. Amy R. Nelson, an assistant professor of physiology and cell biology at the University of South Alabama (USA) Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine, recently received a $300,000 grant from the Coins for Alzheimer’s Research Trust. The award will support Nelson’s lab to begin a new pilot study on a highly understudied protein known as caldesmon, which limits cells from contracting. The lab team preliminarily found that the levels of caldesmon are reduced in brain pericytes (vascular smooth-muscle cells) in brain tissue from Alzheimer’s disease patients. It is known that there is reduced blood flow and a loss of pericytes in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease, but why this happens is unknown and the focus of Nelson’s project. “We aim to conclusively determine whether the levels of pericyte caldesmon are reduced in Alzheimer’s disease brain and the functional consequence of caldesmon being reduced in experimental models,” Nelson said.