The Region - News from May 12, 1985

The University of Southern California has been awarded a $3.8-million grant to study multiple sclerosis and other diseases of the central nervous system, officials said. The National Institutes of Health grant will support a five-year research program into the disorders, which interfere with impulses to the brain by attacking the covering of some nerves. Dr. Leslie P. Weiner, chairman and professor of neurology and microbiology at the USC School of Medicine, will direct the program. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic and incurable disease that produces slurred speech, muscle weakness and paralysis in about 250,000 Americans.