Laxman Mainali, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and faculty member in the Biomolecular Sciences Graduate Programs, has won a National Institute of Health Research Project Grant. The five-year $1.74 million award will support cataract research using advanced microscopy methods. It is a continuation of a previous NIH grant for Mainali’s lab—the first such renewal at Boise State.
According to the NIH, 17% of the U.S. population get cataracts, cloudy spots on the lens of the eye that obscure vision. They are especially common among seniors—over half the population aged 75 and over have cataracts.
Cataract surgery is the only known treatment for the condition currently. Surgeons remove the clouded lens and replace it with an artificial, intraocular lens. However, surgery can lead to complications like secondary cataracts.
The NIH-funded project focuses on the molecular mechanism behind cataracts. Past studies have shown that the alpha-crystallin binding to the lens membrane increases with age and cataract, but the mechanism that initiates alpha-crystallin binding to the lens membrane is unknown.
Mainali and his team of Boise State researchers will shed light on this mystery, using state-of-the-art electron paramagnetic resonance and atomic force microscopy methods in their lab.
This work will enable alternative strategies for preventing, curing and slowing cataract progression.
“If we know the mechanism on the molecular level, we can stop the process or reverse it,” Mainali said.
Mainali’s lab has received NIH funding in the past. This most recent grant is a competitive continuation of a 2019 NIH grant that resulted in 16 papers on the role of cholesterol, cholesterol bilayer domains and the interaction of crystallins with membrane cholesterol and cholesterol bilayer domains in the human eye lens.
NIH grants like Mainali’s are already difficult to earn, but the institute has especially high expectations for renewals. Mainali is the first Boise State faculty member to successfully renew such an award.
Funding from the award will support graduate researchers from the Biomolecular Sciences Graduate Programs, undergraduate assistants from the Department of Physics and a postdoctoral fellow.