Kathrin Meyer, a postdoctoral researcher at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, was awarded an MDA development grant totaling $180,000 over three years to study the roles of cell types other than motor neurons in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Please describe your current research.

For a long time, ALS research focused mainly on the motor neurons. Recent studies including ours have shown the involvement of non-neuronal cells in the disease progression. These cells usually support motor neurons and supply them with energy, but in ALS, they participate in their death. These findings present new opportunities for future therapeutic strategies.

In my project, I am using new reprogramming techniques to generate cell types found in the central nervous system from patient skin biopsies and study them in a culture dish. This will lead to a better understanding of the role these cells play in ALS. At the same time, this model system can be used to compare cells from different patients in order to find properties linked to a slow or fast disease progression. This will help to reveal new therapeutic targets aiming to slow down motor neuron degeneration. Finally, the model system can be used to test such new potential treatments and to evaluate whether patients react differently to specific therapeutics.

What inspired you to study ALS?

During my studies, I was fascinated by the central nervous system and the communication and interplay between the different cell types within. ALS is very devastating for the patients and their families, and new therapeutic strategies are urgently needed. I am hoping that my research can participate in moving this research field forward and in finding new therapeutics that will make a difference in the lives of these patients.

What is your area of focus within the ALS field and why is it important?

I am most interested in the participation of non-neuronal cells to the disease progression. How are these cells altered in ALS? How do these cells slow down or accelerate the death of neurons? Can we manipulate them in order to slow down the disease?

Because non-neuronal cells are the most abundant cell type in the central nervous system, they are a good target for therapeutics. Moreover, research has focused for a long time on motor neurons only. I believe that addressing all cell types involved in the disease could lead to more efficient therapeutic strategies. Moreover, studying disease mechanisms of the central nervous system is very difficult since researchers don’t have access to the cells unless a patient dies. New model systems can help overcome this issue.

Why is it important that MDA continue to fund research in ALS?

ALS is a very devastating fatal neuromuscular disorder with mostly unknown disease cause. The funding from the MDA investing in new model systems to study the disease is crucial to move this research field forward and give hope to the patients.

What do you feel people impacted by ALS can have the most hope about with respect to research right now?

The field is making progress in understanding how the disease spreads between body parts and in evaluating commonalities and differences between individual patients. This will eventually increase understanding of the underlying mechanisms, which is crucial for the development of new therapeutics.

Does your work have any potential implications for other disease fields?

Yes, the new reprogramming technique can also be used on skin biopsies from patients suffering from other neurodegenerative disorders. Disorders of the nervous system are, as mentioned previously, difficult to study due to limited access and because cells cannot easily be removed. Being able to generate these cell types from skin biopsies will allow researchers to study such diseases in a culture dish, which will be very helpful for testing new therapeutics and for improving our understanding of the disease mechanisms.