West Virginia University has been awarded federal funds to expand research into Alzheimer’s disease.
West Virginia University has been awarded federal funds to expand research into Alzheimer’s disease.
WVU was awarded more than $420,000 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for research into stroke and Alzheimer’s disease related dementias.
In a joint statement, U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin said that Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 39,000 West Virginians, and that stroke is the seventh leading cause of death in West Virginia.
“Having cared for both of my parents who suffered from Alzheimer’s, I understand the impact that this disease and others can have on caregivers and families,” Capito said.
The announcement comes after WVU chemistry major Rachel McNeel presented her research on early detection of Alzheimer’s to Congress earlier this week.
Nationally, the CDC estimated in 2020 that nearly 6 million Americans were living with Alzheimer’s disease. Officials expect that number to triple by 2060.
West Virginia University announced Monday it has brought in a record amount of funding for research projects in the past year. The university says it was awarded $203 million for more than 400 projects in the last fiscal year.
WVU is recognized as a top ranking, or R-1, research university. It is the only R-1 university in the state.
University officials say all that funding is necessary to complete more than 1,000 ongoing research projects that look into topics like the environment, medicine and the social sciences.
“It ranges from very, what I would call fundamental science research, in the case of astrophysics, all the way over to the very applied work, where we’re trying to do things to help communities,” said Vice President for Research Fred King.
The federal government is the university’s largest source of research dollars, awarding $110 million in the past year. That is followed by state funding at $42 million and private funding at $40 million.
“So anything we can do to help the health care in the state, anything we can do to help with education for the citizens of the state, and anything that we can do to help with economic development. Those are the things that we’re trying to do,” King said.
WVU’s latest research projects were announced online at WVU Today.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.
Two West Virginia University researchers are in Phase One of a study funded by the National Science Foundation. They are working to find ways to connect underserved populations to natural environments, specifically the ocean, through what is called the Blue Economy. Ross Andrew and Robert Burns spoke with Eric Douglas to explain the project.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Give me the elevator version of what this project is about.
Andrew: I think ultimately, the goal is to bring together different disciplines to address what we see as a weakness in the blue economy. So for example, we have people that are experts in social science, like Robert, who understand visitor dynamics, studying people, as they do recreation or travel. We have people that are economists that are really focused on the dollars and cents. We have people that study race, and are really focusing their scholarship on how different races and ethnicities sort of experience natural resources. And then we have folks from the business realm that are hoping to ultimately take this research product, this process that we’re going through, and make it something that can be functional in society moving forward to sort of create that benefit.
Douglas: What is the blue economy?
Burns: I think the best definition is going to be all of those sources of benefit, really, that come from ocean and coastal resources, at least through the lens of the US. But the blue economy is anything that you can connect to those ocean and coastal resources. And it’s not necessarily just the products that are tangible, like eating seafood, or shipping things from here to Europe or here to Asia. It’s also those, those industries that exist because of the ocean.
Douglas: Why the focus on people of color and the blue economy?
Burns: For 50 years, we’ve studied Caucasian use in blue and green environments — ocean and land environments. And I’ve been a part of that for 20-some years. Every survey that we do, every time we survey people, we get about three to seven percent people of color in our database for that particular study. In this case, we’ve flipped the survey methodology where all of the people that we’re going to interview and work with are people of color, whether they’re African American, Hispanic, or Indigenous or Asian.
Douglas: Let’s walk through that process. Where does it go? What are the downstream efforts?
Andrew: Basically, we’re being funded right now to address this problem. We want to produce a product that goes out to people. And we’re trying to treat this like a business startup. At the end of phase one, we’re going to have some sort of low fidelity prototype that we can then give to people in different areas that are connected to the blue economy and these resources and say, “Use this. Try this. Does this app, does this website, does this data-structuring tool that we’ve made to be user-friendly work?”
It’s not a dusty report that everybody has to read through. It’s not a whole matrix of ones and zeros of data. But it’s something that we can use, maybe it’s almost like a game. But it basically tells that story of connection, and allows people to explore these resources a little more effectively than what they get now.
Douglas: For West Virginians historically, it may not be true as much today, but there’s always been that connection between West Virginia and Myrtle Beach. How does this apply to West Virginians who would go to Myrtle Beach?
Burns: I think the real answer is that the study that we’re conducting in the Florida Keys and in the Great Lakes is designed to be replicated and extended elsewhere. We want Myrtle Beach to be as accessible to underserved communities as the Florida Keys. We know that in this area, West Virginia is the heart of Appalachia. There are a lot of underserved populations, a lot of people who don’t have access to go to Florida Keys, but they can drive to Myrtle Beach.
Part of the process is informing people, for example, in West Virginia, of the opportunities that exist so they can develop those place attachments with those areas and make sure that they’re accessible for the income that exists in West Virginia. There are a lot of high-end opportunities in Myrtle Beach, and there are the kinds of opportunities for folks who don’t have a lot of funds. So we want to be able to provide people with more opportunities, including those from West Virginia.
If the researchers are approved for Phase Two next year, they will be eligible to receive a $5 million grant to continue their work. The grant is funded through the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Early this summer, Eastern Panhandle residents should expect to hear billions of loud, humming cicadas.
“Oh, it’s deafening,” said Matt Kasson, an associate professor of plant pathology and mycology at West Virginia University.
Angie Macias
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WVU Photo
Matt Kasson, associate professor of plant pathology and mycology at West Virginia University.
An annual brood of periodical cicadas emerges every year in different parts of the county after 17 years underground. But Brood X or the Great Eastern Brood is the most widespread of them all.
“You’ll get 10s of millions emerging per acre,” Kasson said. “And that’s true of other broods, it’s just that their footprint on the landscape is smaller.
Recently, Kasson and his colleagues have been studying a fungus called Massospara that is infecting the cicadas after they emerge from the ground.
Over the next couple of weeks, the fungus essentially eats away the entire back half of the cicada and grows in its place. Kasson compares this fungal growth to a “chalky gumdrop” on the back of the cicada.
“If you were to take that infected cicada and actually use it on a chalkboard, you can write your name in spores,” he said.
Even though half of their body is missing, fungus-infected cicadas don’t die and actually stay alive.
“That process where the fungus replaces the back half of the body is really why we call these zombie cicadas,” said Brian Lovett, a postdoctoral researcher at WVU.
Researchers have found cathinone, an amphetamine, in the cicadas. Cathinone is the active ingredient in khat leaves, chewed for a euphoric sensation in the Middle East and parts of Africa.
Lovett said cathinone could be producing a similar euphoric effect in cicadas as humans and insects have similar brain pathways.
Lovett said the fungus manipulates and takes advantage of the cicada’s mating cycle to spread to new hosts.
“It starts to do what’s in the interest of the fungus, which is to transmit those fungus spores,” Lovett said. “It goes from being a normal cicada to a cicada that is under the control of this pathogen.”
Female cicadas will typically flick their wings to attract a male, said Lovett.
Angie Macias
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WVU Photo
Brian Lovett, a post-doctoral researcher at West Virginia University.
“If you see a male secured on a branch, you can snap your fingers and the males will walk toward that snap,” he said.
Researchers have found that infected male cicadas will begin to emulate this female behavior, snap their wings and seduce other male cicadas to mate and spread the virus.
“The fact that Massospara infected males are snapping their wings like that suggests that the fungus is manipulating them to result in more mating, and thus, more infection,” Lovett said.
But Lovett said cicadas — even zombie ones — aren’t something to be scared of and this summer will provide an opportunity for people to engage with nature in a new way.
“In the summer, when the cicadas emerge, a couple weeks later, the zombie cicadas are going to be outside of your door,” Lovett said
He encourages people to walk outside, pick up a cicada and look for that chalky gumdrop on the back. If you find one, take a picture and send it to the researchers.
“Particularly with this really big emergence, I think it’s a great opportunity for people to really be amazed by the system, the way that we get to be every day,” he said.
The Center for Disease Control reports that one in 68 children in the U.S. will have autism. That number jumps to 1 in 42 if we’re just talking about boys. And the risk increases if you already a have a child with autism. In West Virginia, new research is underway to try to get at how the autistic mind ticks.
Credit West Virginia University
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West Virginia University
Paula Webster at the Center for Neuroscience at WVU.
Paula Webster is a neuroscience graduate who works in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the Center for Neuroscience at West Virginia University.
While a psychology major at Wheeling Jesuit University, Webster discovered her three-year-old son was on the Autism Spectrum. She became a therapist who practiced applied behavioral analysis (ABA). But Webster wants to know more than how to intervene after diagnosis.
This is the first biomedical research into autism at the university. The study hopes to incorporate subjects in a wide range of ages—children through adults.
Webster works with Assistant Professor at WVU James Lewis, a neuroscientist. They taking and studying images of the brains of people with and without autism performing certain tasks.
The research isn’t just focused on what parts of the brain kids and adults with autism use, but also how they process information. It’s clear, said Webster, that there are many with autism who compensate to accomplish tasks. She hopes that by imaging high-functioning individuals with autism she may be able to start to characterize some of the methods of compensation they’re using.
Webster speculates it may be those mechanisms that allow them to be high-functioning.
“I think we can get at trying to characterize some of those compensatory mechanisms a little bit better,” Webster said, “and correlate those with sub-scores of autism scores to try to get some sub-types of autism.”
Webster hopes the research will go towards influencing the various therapies that exist as well as possibly providing a way to diagnose autism earlier, which in and of itself would be a powerful tool to help abate the condition.
