Mark Zervas, Manning assistant professor in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry, has won three-year, $716,769 ($450,000 in direct costs) Department of Defense grant to study the disease tuberous sclerosis in a novel mouse model generated by his lab. Tuberous Sclerosis is a developmental genetic disorder that has neurological effects in many patients including autism, cognitive deficit, and epilepsy. In his work, Dr. Zervas and graduate student Elizabeth Normand will seek to link specific brain regions and cell types to neurological manifestations of the disease. They will also look to discern the points in time when the developing brain is affected by the disease. “In addition, we are testing when treatment that targets the pathway affected in Tuberous Sclerosis may be most effective at rescuing neurological aspects of the disease,” he said.