MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A researcher at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center has received a federal grant to work on multiple sclerosis therapies.

Dr. Michael Levin will use the $650,000 in funding to study how an MS patient's own antibodies attack nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

Traditionally, the immune response was thought only to destroy the protective coating of nerve cells, known as myelin. However, recent studies indicate that the immune response also directly attacks nerve cells, leading to neuronal injury, in a process known as neurodegeneration.

Levin is also chief of neurology at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Memphis.