{ LIFE SCIENCES }

Seeding Neuroscience Breakthroughs

A new gift from Rod AB ’66, MBA ’68 and Alice Moorhead will help advance our understanding of the underlying factors of brain disorders and diseases

Colorful visualization of a neural network
NEURONS MAKING SYNAPSES IN THE HUMAN ANTERIOR TEMPORAL CORTEX

Seeding Neuroscience Breakthroughs

{ LIFE SCIENCES }
September 22, 2024

For Rodman “Rod” W. Moorhead III AB ’66, MBA ’68, and his wife, Alice, their longtime support of brain research at Harvard is rooted in their family history. Having seen loved ones grapple with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, language-learning issues, and Parkinson’s disease, the couple was inspired to help catalyze innovative research into new treatments—and ultimately cures—for diseases and disorders of the brain.

In 2014, the Moorheads made a gift to establish a collaborative grants fund for the Harvard Brain Science Initiative (HBI), which had launched that year to promote interdisciplinary exploration among neuroscientists from the Center for Brain Science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and HMS’s affiliated hospitals. The Moorheads wanted to breathe life into small, innovative projects focused on uncovering the biological bases of brain diseases. A few years later, impressed by HBI’s work, they provided additional support.

Now a new gift from the Moorheads has established the Alice and Rodman W. Moorhead III Neurobiology Seed Grants Fund at HMS, providing much needed support for the bold, creative collaborations that are central to HBI’s mission, enabling a broad range of neuroscience research that may yield fundamental insights into the mechanisms underlying how the brain works.

“These scientists are doing such remarkable work—things we couldn’t have imagined possible a short while ago—and we are excited to see what new discoveries these grants can seed,” says Rod Moorhead, a member of the HMS Board of Fellows and the HMS Discovery Council.

The seed grants are selected from a large number of applications through a competitive process overseen by David Ginty, the Edward R. and Anne G. Lefler Professor and chair of the Department of Neurobiology at HMS, who notes that the Moorheads’ unwavering enthusiasm to back new ideas in the field of neuroscience is “deeply palpable and highly appreciated.”

“The Moorheads’ recent gift provides a much-needed opportunity to support high-risk, high-reward research in its early stages,” says Ginty, “especially for faculty who have seeds of ideas but need assistance to pursue and cultivate those ideas into bona fide research programs.”

“These scientists are doing such remarkable work—things we couldn’t have imagined possible a short while ago—and we are excited to see what new discoveries these grants can seed.”

— Rodman W. Moorhead III AB ’66, MBA ’68

Dragana Rogulja stands next to a large black-and-white illustration of a fly

Understanding the Link Between Sleep Problems and Cancer

Dragana Rogulja, an associate professor of neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, is the first recipient of an Alice and Rodman W. Moorhead III Neurobiology Seed Grant. She is investigating how gut dysfunction resulting from sleep loss leads to the development and progression of different types of health issues.

“Many adults sleep less than the recommended seven to nine hours per night, often habitually,” says Rogulja. While society frequently lauds forgoing sleep as an emblem of industriousness, she notes, “extensive clinical evidence shows a strong association between sleep disturbances and diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer—and there is currently no explanation for this connection.”

An earlier study from Rogulja yielded unexpected connections between the brain and the gut. In fruit flies and mice, Rogulja and her team found that sleep deprivation leads to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS)—unstable molecules—specifically in the gut. When ROS accumulate, they lead to a toxic reaction called oxidation that ultimately damages gut tissue and cells. Her team conclusively determined that severe sleep loss resulted in gut dysfunction due to ROS. Moreover, when the team gave the sleep-deprived flies antioxidants for the gut, the flies could survive on little or no sleep, suggesting that the gut is an important target of sleep. 

With the seed grant, Rogulja is now seeking to understand how gut dysfunction resulting from sleep loss and oxidation might lead to certain types of cancer. She will be looking into two types of cancer, one inside the gut and one outside it, and evaluating the impact of gut dysfunction on cancer development and progression. With the widespread and very common issue of poor sleep among many adults, this project has strong implications for altering how we address sleep disturbances in our society.

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