NIH Grants $10.7 Million to Advance Sensory Biology at OU Medicine

The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine has secured a five-year, $10.7 million National Institutes of Health grant to build a new research hub focused on sensory biology—how cells detect environmental cues and convert them into signaling responses. Announced as part of the COBRE (Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence) program, the award is designed to strengthen biomedical research capacity while supporting early-career investigators in states that have historically received comparatively less NIH funding.

Funded through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the center will function as an infrastructure-driven platform for multidisciplinary studies spanning model organisms and human materials. Researchers will use laboratory systems ranging from simple organisms such as roundworms and algae to mouse models and human tissue samples, enabling questions to be tested across evolutionary scales and experimental contexts.

At the center of the program is the study of cilia, microscopic hair-like organelles that protrude from cells and operate as antennae for signal detection. By organizing receptor-mediated pathways at the cell surface, cilia help cells interpret mechanical and chemical inputs, coordinate developmental programs, and regulate physiological homeostasis.

Defects in cilia are not confined to a single organ system. Instead, impaired ciliary function has been linked to widespread disorders affecting nearly every part of the body. The grant-supported work will explore how cilia malfunction contributes to conditions including polycystic kidney disease, congenital heart disease, obesity, scoliosis, neuronal malformations, and certain cancers.

The investigators will emphasize a core technical objective: mapping how specific signaling pathways depend on ciliary structure and dynamics. This includes investigating how alterations at the molecular level can propagate into system-level phenotypes, offering mechanistic links between organelle behavior and disease progression.

“This is a relatively unexplored niche of research,” said Leonidas Tsiokas, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Cell Biology, who will lead the initiative. Tsiokas noted that cilia-related signaling is increasingly recognized as a contributor to major disease processes, yet key mechanisms remain insufficiently charted.

The COBRE award will also provide mentorship and funding for four junior researchers in the College of Medicine. Their projects range across retinal degeneration mechanisms, neurodevelopmental biology in Joubert syndrome, cilia dysfunction in neuropsychiatric conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, and cellular regulation of copper sensing and handling.

To accelerate discovery, two shared equipment cores will support the program. A Super-Resolution Imaging Core will provide advanced microscopy to resolve cellular structures separated by only a few nanometers, while a Cell and Genetic Engineering Core will supply tools for probing gene and protein function in both healthy and diseased states.

Overall, the center aims to convert cilia biology into actionable biomedical insights—supporting the development of improved strategies to prevent, diagnose, and treat a broad range of illnesses driven by dysfunctional cellular sensing.