Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center receives NSF grant for nerve cell research

Stephen Meriney in a blue shirt

The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, a joint research effort by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, recently received a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, which will continue a lab-computer collaboration that accurately simulates communications between nerve cells and muscle cells. Stephen Meriney, professor of neuroscience in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, is a principal investigator of the project.

The project has immediate applications in treating a type of neurological disease called Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome (LEMS). It also offers fundamental insights into how nerve cells communicate with muscle cells in health and disease. LEMS is a neurological disease in which a person’s immune system attacks calcium channels, leading to a weaker communication between nerve and muscle, which causes weaker muscle contractions and an inability of patients to move and function normally.

In earlier work, scientists at the center and Pitt simulated the role of the calcium channels of the nerve-cell membrane in communication between nerve and muscle cells in frogs and mice. The work faithfully reproduced the nerve-to-muscle signaling differences seen in those species.