Antoine de Morrée, a postdoctoral scholar at Palo Alto Veterans Institute for Research and Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., was awarded an MDA development grant totaling $180,000 over three years to test a way to stop muscles from making toxic DUX4 protein as a possible treatment for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD). The goals of de Morrée’s work are to understand how cells make stabile RNA messages, and to develop a way to destabilize RNA messages that allow cellular machinery to produce the DUX4 protein. These studies have the potential to lead to new treatments that will reduce the toxicity in the muscles of patients with FSHD.

Funding for this MDA development grant began Aug. 1, 2015.