SIU Med School Receives National Grant to Study Pediatric Disorder

A physician at SIU School of Medicine in Springfield has been awarded a grant from the national Tourette Syndrome Association (TSA) to the study the immunology of Tourette syndrome (TS). Total budget for the grant is $56,100.

Dr. Michael Pranzatelli, professor of neurology and pediatrics and director of the National Pediatric Myoclonus Center, is the principal investigator for the project. He is one of 15 researchers in the nation to receive an award.

The study will look at PANDAS, a group of patients who have been diagnosed with TS after having streptococcal throat infection. The study will examine immunological activity in spinal fluid to determine if there is a real association of TS and streptococcal infection. Previous studies that have attempted to verify the association have examined blood rather than spinal fluid. This research has important implications for future development of a medication that could target the immune abnormalities and arrest the disease. TS can affect patients age two years through adulthood.

Pranzatelli's research has received national funding for nearly 20 years, which now totals $1,575,179. His other research focuses on pediatric myoclonus.

Pranzatelli joined the SIU faculty in 1999. He was a research fellow in neuropharmacology and neurology at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles at the University of Southern California (1982-1985) and postdoctoral trainee at the Pediatric Stolinsky Laboratory in Denver (1981-1982). Pranzatelli completed his residency in pediatric neurology at the University of Colorado in Denver (1982) and a residency in pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio (1979). He earned his medical degree from Pennsylvania State University in Hershey (1976) and his bachelor's degree at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh (1968).

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