Below is a transcript of our conversation with CMU Biology Professor Michelle Steinhilb:
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty.
The devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease are growing as our population ages. CMU biology professor Michelle Steinhilb, along with Doctor May Khanna from the University of Florida, was awarded a $3,000,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. Dr. Steinhilb talked about her research and given recent policy changes when it comes to federal funding, her thoughts on the security of the money itself…
Michelle Steinhilb:
We came together to work on this project because we actually complement each other quite well. Doctor Khanna is a structural biologist. She does a lot of biophysical studies, and my lab does a lot of physiological studies using flies and so coming together to study these two proteins was kind of a (a) natural collaboration. She's an expert on TDP. She’s been studying it for quite some time. I've been working on Tau for over 20 years and so it just sort of was a great way for us to maximize our strengths and work together to try and understand how these two proteins function normally and then ultimately maybe dysfunction together during disease.
DN:
And when we talk about these proteins in relation to Alzheimer's, what is that connection? How does that then tie in when we look at these particular proteins?
MS:
When you look in patients who have Alzheimer's disease after they passed away and you do an autopsy in order to be classified as Alzheimer's, they have to have these two pathological features in their brains. They have to have amyloid plaques, which are made out of a beta protein, and they have Tau tangles, which are sort of hyper phosphorylated forms of this protein called Tau. And so, it's also been found that in these neurons that have died through the process of neurodegeneration, not only do you find Tau as this aggregated phosphorylated protein, you also find that other proteins might be involved in these aggregates, including TDP 43. So TDP 43 is in some 60% of Alzheimer's disease patient brains, and it's also in a number of other neurodegenerative diseases like Lou Gehrig's disease and frontotemporal dementia. The more we learn about neurodegenerative diseases, the more we find they have a lot of things in common, including some of these common players where you might normally attribute one to a particular disease, but then as you look closer, you find that they are actually a feature in many different neurodegenerative diseases.
DN:
Is this eventually towards potential treatments, or when you look at a relationship like this, is this something where we understand enough that we would start working towards a cure? Is there a long-term focus where you think this work with the two proteins will take you?
MS:
If we can identify, for example, the (the) points where these proteins touch each other, you know that's where you can come in and try and develop a therapeutic molecule that maybe could block those touching points. For example, if the interaction between those two ends up leading to neuronal cell death we could try and find therapeutics that could block that interaction and so by understanding how they function in a normal physiological way, we wouldn't want to inhibit those kinds of interactions, but we would want to then try and understand the kinds of interactions that happen when it becomes pathological. And so, then we could look for those. And so absolutely the idea of moving toward novel therapeutics that ultimately could prevent disease progression that could ultimately be cures. Those are, of course, the (the) absolute goal of this type of research.
DN:
What is that status of your grant? As we sit down today?
MS:
When it was approved for funding, they approved it as a five-year project. But the way that NIH works is they distribute that money on a yearly basis. For example, in year 1 you would just get year one money and so we already have year one money. It started over the summer and so we're currently spending that money and have been told by everybody at the university, from the President to the Deans and everyone else that it's business as usual and we should feel comfortable spending that money. Near the end of the end of the first year of the project, you have to submit a project progress report to the NIH and then if you're making significant progress that they deem as acceptable, then they release a year two funds. You know, I think a lot of us are not sure what can happen in future years, but based on what we've all been told, we're operating under the assumption that all is well and that that money will be there.
DN:
We'll keep our fingers crossed that the funding remains stable, as that remains, perhaps a question to be answered. Professor Michelle Steinholt, thank you very much for sharing the good news with us. Good luck and hope everything remains stable!
MS:
So thank you for having me.
