2022 Spring/Summer Highlights of Hope

Collaborative Research Network grants |
Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s
Two VAI scientists and their collaborators
were awarded more than $15 million to
advance Parkinson’s disease research
and accelerate the development of new
therapies.
This pair of awards, called Collaborative
Research Network grants, comes from
Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s, a
coordinated research initiative to accelerate
the pace of discovery and inform the
path to a cure for Parkinson’s through
collaboration, research-enabling resources
and data sharing.
VAI’s Dr. Michael Henderson and colleagues
at Yale University and University of
Pennsylvania were awarded $9 million to
identify areas and cell types in the brain
that may be particularly vulnerable to
Parkinson’s disease. 3
VAI’s Dr. Hong-yuan Chu and colleagues at
Emory University were awarded $6.3 million
to investigate the brain’s motor cortex —
which helps manage movement — and its
role in Parkinson’s. Changes to the cells
that comprise this critical brain region have
long been implicated in the disease. They
also will collaborate with scientists at SUNY
Downstate and Inscopix. 4
Read more at bit.ly/ASAPChu and bit.ly/
ASAPHend
Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award
| National Institute of General Medical
Sciences of the National Institutes
of Health
Maximizing Investigators’ Research Awards
are highly competitive and prestigious fiveyear
grants and, in 2021, one was awarded
to VAI Assistant Professor Dr. Stephanie
Grainger. The award is worth nearly
$2.4 million over the life of the award.
Grainger’s project will explore a critical
type of cellular communication that drives
healthy development and, when disrupted,
can spur cancer, osteoporosis, heart
conditions and other diseases. 5
Research Scholar’s Grant | American
Cancer Society
VAI’s Dr. Scott Rothbart earned a four-year,
$792,000 Research Scholar’s Grant from
the American Cancer Society to investigate
the mechanisms that power a promising
class of potent anti-cancer drugs. Called
EZH2 inhibitors, these drugs work by
targeting an enzyme named EZH2 that has
long been of interest to cancer researchers
because it interacts with the proteins that
support DNA. As such, EZH2 plays a major
role in switching genes that regulate cell
proliferation “on” or “off” — a process that
can lead to cancer if it goes awry. It
also helps tumors evade attack by the
In 2020, VAI
ranked among
the top five
National
Institutes of
Health-funded
organizations
in Michigan,
just after the
state’s larger
universities and
health systems.
immune system. 6 VAN ANDEL INSTITUTE HIGHLIGHTS OF HOPE | 7
Source: United for Medical Research.
2020. NIH in Your State: Michigan.
unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-yourstate/
Funding Acknowledgements
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institutes of Health under award numbers: 1 P50CA254897;
2
1R01HG012444; and 5 R35GM142779. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily
represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health
3
Research reported in this publication was supported by funds from Emory University as part of an Aligning Science Across
Parkinson’s Collaborative Research Network award.
4
Research reported in this publication was supported by funds from Yale University as part of an Aligning Science Across
Parkinson’s Collaborative Research Network award.
6
Scott B. Rothbart, Ph.D., is supported by a Research Scholar Grant, RSG-21-031-01-DMC, from the American Cancer Society.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the granting
organizations.