NIH grant
Prof. Morris wins three-year federal grant for sea urchin research
Robert L. Morris, associate professor of biology, has been awarded a three-year, $150,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support his continuing research on the roles of cilia in animal development.
The research will investigate how cilia specialize during development, with the hope of learning more about the many human diseases and birth defects that are caused by ciliary defects, such as polycystic kidney disease. Morris studies cell development in the sea urchin, a creature whose embryonic development closely resembles that of human beings.
The grant is from the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which identifies itself as “the nation’s medical research agency.”
“This formerly obscure organelle, the cell’s cilium, has undergone a revolution in research interest due to recent discoveries about its importance in human development, birth defects and disease,” says Morris, who has been studying cilia and cell development for 14 years.
Cilia are whip-like structures that extend from a cell’s surface and act as oars to propel fluid over cells, or as antennae to sense stimuli in the environment, Morris explains. In adults, motile cilia support respiratory, reproductive and nervous systems. They are also crucial to the developmental processes that position our hearts on the left and our livers on the right. Immotile cilia sense cues in embryos and sense sight, sound, and smell in adults.
The NICHD grant will support Morris and his student research team during the academic year and during a summer residence at a major marine lab, either the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., or the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Maine.
“This research program will provide the first evidence of how cilia form and specialize during the development of complex animals to create the spectrum of ciliary forms and functions essential to human health,” Morris says.
The grant will also enable Morris and two of his students to attend and present their research findings at the International Conference of the American Society for Cell Biology.
Attended by some 10,000 scientists in the fields of cell and developmental biology, the conference is a premier opportunity to present research and a “transformative experience for the students as undergraduates,” says Morris.
