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The Migraine Research Foundation is the largest private funder of migraine research in the United States and awards grants to scientists whose work holds the promise of groundbreaking advances in the search for the causes of migraine.
MRF awarded its first grants (totaling nearly $200,000) in 2007 and plans to announce its 2008 awards shortly. Funding for the grants comes from the support of a growing private donor base. If you would like to join us in funding migraine research, click here.
MRF is committed to advancing migraine science that will improve treatments and ultimately, lead to a cure. For more information about our Request for Proposals process, click here. You may also email us at research@migraineresearchfoundation.org. The Foundation's 2007 research grants were awarded to the following four researchers:
2007 Grant Recipients
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Richard Lipton, MD
Albert Einstein College of Medicine,
Bronx, NY
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Towards a Migraine Genetics Population Laboratory: Building on the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention Study
The long-term goal of this project is to build a library of genetic material on well-characterized headache sufferers from the general population. The grant from the Migraine Research Foundation will be used to fund a pilot study on DNA collection by mail. Ultimately, Dr. Lipton hopes to identify genes that contribute to the risk of episodic and chronic migraine as well as several important comorbidities (disease processes that exist at the same time but are unrelated).
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Michael Oshinsky, Ph.D.
Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA
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Glial Activation and the Chronification of Headache
Some people who experience episodic migraine will later develop chronic daily headache, a severely disabling condition which affects up to 4% of the US population. Persistent activation of specialized nerve cells called glia is thought to contribute to the transition of episodic migraine to chronic daily headache. Dr. Oshinksy's research will investigate the effect of such glial activation in rats.
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Frank Porreca, Ph.D.
University of Arizona, Tucson
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Behavioral Model of Medication Overuse Headache
People suffering from migraine may experience not only a headache, but also other symptoms such as cutaneous allodynia - sensitivity to touch. Dr. Porreca aims to better understand why this happens to the face and upper torso by using rats to study nerves in the head and brainstem which may underlie this phenomenon. This research may lead to the development of new ways to treat and prevent migraine and its associated symptoms.
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Ann Scher, Ph.D.
Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD
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Migraine in Middle Age and Late Life: A Longitudinal Analysis of Factors Related to Migraine Prognosis in a Large Population-Based Cohort
About one third of migraine sufferers experience an aura - neurological symptoms including visual disturbances and dizziness - before or during an attack. Recent studies have linked migraine with aura to an increased risk of strokes and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Scher will examine the medical histories of Icelandic adults to study whether there is a relationship between migraine in middle-age and late-life stroke or white-matter lesions, and whether these conditions are caused by common genetic factors.
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