February 7, 2008

SIU Med School Physician Receives Four National Grants

A physician at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield has been awarded four national grants totaling $578,362.  Dr. Michael R. Pranzatelli, professor of neurology and pediatrics and chief of child neurology, is the principal investigator for all four projects involving pediatric opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome (OMS).

OMS causes a sudden inability in a child’s capacity to talk, sit or walk.  The disease is triggered by a childhood brain tumor called neuroblastoma.  The SIU studies may develop new therapies for OMS in children.

A three-year grant has been awarded by the Thrasher Research Fund to study cytokines as biomarkers and therapeutic targets in paraneoplastic OMS.  The total budget of the grant is $279,836.

A one-year grant has been awarded by Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to analyze the immunological response to adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), a drug used in treating OMS.  The total budget for the grant is $144,386.

Another one-year grant has been awarded by Genentech/Biogen IDEC to study how the drug, rituximab, alters inflammation in pediatric OMS.  The total budget for the grant is $99,740.

A third one-year grant has been awarded by the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch Foundation to study lymphocyte cytokine receptors in OMS.  The total budget of the grant is $54,400.

Pranzatelli’s research of pediatric myoclonus has received national funding for more than twenty years and now totals more than $3.7 million.

Pranzatelli joined the SIU faculty in 1999.  He is director of the National Pediatric Myoclonus Center based at SIU and a member of the medical team at St. John’s Children’s Hospital.  He was a research fellow in neuropharmacology at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles at the University of Southern California (1982-85) and NIH postdoctoral trainee at the Pediatric Stolinsky Laboratory (1981-82).  Pranzatelli completed his residency in pediatric neurology at the University of Colorado (1982) and a residency in pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University (1979).  He earned his medical degree from Pennsylvania State University (1976) and his bachelor’s degree at Duquesne University (1968). 

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