The Salk Institute in La Jolla was awarded a $15.6 million state grant to develop a stem-cell derived therapy for Lou Gehrig's disease, it was announced Wednesday. The grant was among $250 million awarded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which was created to oversee the allocation of $3 billion in voter-approved bond money for stem cell research in the state. Sam Pfaff, a professor at the Salk's Gene Expression Laboratory and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, will lead the group of researchers working on the four-year project. Lou Gehrig's disease, also called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. The disease results in the brain being unable to initiate and control muscle movement and eventually leads to paralysis and death.