FAYETTEVILLE -- A $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense will help a University of Arkansas at Fayetteville biologist study the origin of a rare and incurable disease.
Shilpa Iyer, who joined UA in August, will lead a team that includes researchers at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Virginia and the University of Georgia as they work to better understand Leigh's disease.
The inherited disorder affects the central nervous system, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. It primarily afflicts young children and results in death before adulthood.
It is a "classic mitochondrial disease," as described by the Department of Defense's Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. Mitochondria produce energy in cells and are vital to tissue function.
In 2014, researchers with the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine published study results linking veterans with "Gulf War illness," named after the 1990-91 conflict, to impaired mitochondrial function. The Defense Department, in describing Iyer's award, stated that genetic testing for mitochondrial diseases in military children is a goal for the study.
"Our multidisciplinary research team is using advanced genetic techniques to better understand how and when mutations in the mitochondrial genome develop and cause these diseases," Iyer said in a statement released Thursday by UA.
Metro on 10/15/2016