The Virginia Bioinformatics Institute is getting a cool $750,000 to crack the code on the body’s internal clock — also known as the circadian rhythm.
The grant, which comes from the National Science Foundation, will help to fund research into how circadian rhythms impact cellular processes that cause diseases and disorders to develop, according to a statement.
The body’s internal clock has long been pinpointed as key to understanding how the body works, and could lead to breakthroughs in human health.
Scientists believe that the disruption of circadian rhythms can change how cells live, die, and divide, and it may have an effect on the development of cancer or neurodegenerative disorders, to name a few.
But the fact of the matter is scientists just don’t know much about how this process works, and how much if any impact circadian rhythms have on all of these things — hence the grant to study it in more detail.
Carla Finkielstein, who is the lead researcher on the project and an associate professor in the College of Science at Virginia Tech, said: “We’re just beginning to understand the big picture of how the environment influences the cell’s decisions here. … What we thought we knew about the functioning of circadian rhythms has revealed itself to be one small part of a large and intricate puzzle.”