European funding for Freiburg’s epilepsy research

An international group of researchers from Freiburg, Berlin, Paris and Helsinki has received a grant over 1.6 million € by the European Union. Their goal is to develop novel approaches that will help to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying not only disease-promoting but also adaptive mechanisms triggered during the initial stages of epilepsy. “This information will let us test specific strategies to block processes that are crucial when epilepsy arises,” as Carola Haas, Freiburg’s principal investigator of the project, points out. The project will be funded over the course of 3 years.

Epilepsy occurs in different forms. Due to the unpredictable occurrence of seizures, the disease severely degrades life quality. In one common form, the temporal lobe epilepsy, there seems to be no genetic component to its occurrence. This suggests that disease-promoting mechanisms during the wiring and re-wiring of connections between nerve cells play a central role. The pathological changes underlying this form of epilepsy are induced by several forms of damaging influences such as traumatic injury, infection, stroke, bleeding inside the brain and infantile convulsions. Yet, brain mechanisms involved in this process of epileptogenesis are only partially understood.

Key to the researchers’ approach is a novel molecular tool that allows them to induce the production of protein expression within nerve cells in response to the stress factors during the causing stages of epilepsy. “The newly devised method allows us to ask which candidate proteins – or combinations – can suppress seizure activity”, Haas explains. At this stage, research will be carried out in lab animals and isolated brain slices.

This approach, the researchers hope, will provide insights into molecular, cellular and network mechanisms underlying the occurrence of epilepsy, and also permit tests for the development of a gene therapy based on the molecular processes involved.

Funding is organised by the European Commission through the ERA-NET initiative and provided by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Its goal is to create a European Research Area in which research is conducted and funded across countries, allowing research groups to jointly work on specific problems, exchange ideas, and benefit from cross border expertise. Within this scheme, ERA-NET NEURON supports basic and translational research in the diverse fields of disease-related neuroscience.