Texas A&M University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have been awarded a $3.2 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for a project titled “The Role of GPI-Anchor Biosynthesis in Sleep Regulation.” Led by Dr. Alex Keene of Texas A&M, Dr. Phil Gehrman of Penn, and Dr. Struan Grant of CHOP, the award will fund a unique collaboration that brings together expertise in human genetics, neuroscience, and animal model systems. This long-standing collaboration aims to unlock how genetic variation influences sleep, a critical but often overlooked pillar of health and wellbeing.
The new grant builds on a high-profile discovery published in Science Advances (Palermo et al. 2023), where the team identified the glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchor biosynthesis pathway as a key and conserved regulator of sleep. Using fruit flies, zebrafish, and human data, the researchers showed that this pathway, best known for its role in attaching proteins to cell membranes, directly influences sleep regulation across species. The finding opens an exciting new direction for sleep research, connecting basic biology to human health and setting the stage for breakthroughs in understanding sleep disorders such as insomnia.
With NHLBI support, the researchers will now take the next steps: identifying which proteins linked to GPI anchors regulate sleep, pinpointing the precise genetic variants that affect this pathway in human brain cells, and studying how rare genetic changes influence sleep patterns in large groups of people. By connecting discoveries in the lab to real-world health outcomes, this research holds the potential to shed light on why sleep is so essential, how disruptions contribute to diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular conditions, and how new treatments might one day improve sleep and overall health.