OMRF to share $9 million grant

The National Institute on Aging has awarded a $9 million grant to the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) and three other institutions to study age-related muscle loss.

This collaborative effort is based at the University of Michigan and includes OMRF, the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, and core facilities at the Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Over the five-year grant, OMRF scientist Holly Van Remmen, Ph.D., will receive $2.1 million to research mechanisms of sarcopenia, a disease in which the body loses skeletal muscle mass.

“Every institution involved is using the same model system and has the same basic questions about sarcopenia, but each of us has our own expertise and our own toolbox, so to speak,” said Van Remmen. “By combining different approaches, we can hit a problem from several directions.”

In her laboratory at OMRF in Oklahoma City, Van Remmen will study mice that exhibit muscle wasting and weakness. Van Remmen’s hope is that by pinpointing the triggers for sarcopenia, researchers ultimately may devise ways to disrupt the process.

The new grant is the third five-year grant for the four institutions, which have been working together for a decade to understand why muscles atrophy as they age.

The grant is funded by the National Institute on Aging, a part of the National Institutes of Health.