The National Science Foundation has awarded a three-year grant worth $255,000 to Cal State Long Beach chemistry and biochemistry Professor Jeffrey Cohlberg.
Titled "Interaction of Neurofilament Proteins During Filament Assembly," the grant is part of the NSF research at undergraduate institutions program.
"This grant reflects the national academic reputation of this wonderful first rate scholar," CSULB President Robert Maxson said.
The funding will enable Cohlberg and his students to study purified neurofilament proteins and examine their process of assembly.
According to a press release, an axon is a projection of a nerve cell that transmits nerve impulses to a muscle cell or another nerve cell. Running throughout the axon are structures called neurofilaments, which give axons their structural support.
Neurofilaments consist of protein molecules that have to be replenished.
In motor neuron disorders such as Lou GehrigÕs disease, this replenishment is blocked.
"The more we increase our understanding of neurofilaments, the more clues people get on what kinds of treatment will be effective," Cohlberg said. A Long Beach resident, Cohlberg has been at CSULB since 1975.
He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Cornell University in New York and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from UC Berkeley.