Promoting Diversity in Rare Disease Research

Drug companies are developing more therapies for rare disease patients — and doing it faster — than ever before. But when it comes to enrolling minorities in clinical trials, the US track record is lagging behind. That subject was the focus of a March 15 session during the 2022 MDA Clinical & Scientific Conference in . . .

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MDA Let’s Play Community Spotlight: NegaGrier

Jeff Shaw, program manager for MDA Let’s Play, MDA’s online gaming and streaming community, is part of a team that leads Saturday Game Nights on Twitch, celebrity streamer events for MDA, tournaments with great teams and players, and steadfast support and discussion on the MDA Let’s Play Discord server channel. Among our many great friends . . .

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Hacking COVID: MDA Ambassador Edition, Part 2

In April, MDA fielded a survey to ask its community how COVID-19 was impacting their lives. We heard your responses — anxiety, questions, hope — and wanted to know more. In this six-part blog series, Hacking COVID, people from MDA’s community, all living with neuromuscular diseases, shared how they’ve altered their day-to-day lives, how they’ve . . .

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MDA National Ambassadors Share the Everyday Impact of Neuromuscular Disease

In 1950, when the Muscular Dystrophy Association was founded, muscular dystrophy and neuromuscular disease weren’t well known or well understood. But they were, as today, affecting an entire community of kids and adults. And so in 1952, MDA made a move to introduce this community of individuals and families to the world. MDA’s National Ambassador . . .

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Q&A With SSSI-MDA Fellow and Researcher Adam Bittel

Adam Bittel, PT, DPT, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, was awarded the 2019 SSSI-MDA Fellowship Award. The award, co-sponsored by Strength, Science & Stories of Inspiration (SSSI) and MDA, will provide a total of $40,000 over two years to support Dr. Bittel’s work investigating the cellular mechanisms underlying the effects . . .

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Researcher with FSHD Awarded MDA Funding to Discover New Therapies for the Disease

Like many pre-medical students, Justin Cohen discovered along the way that what he really liked was research. However, unlike others who exchange the stethoscope for a microscope, Justin had a strikingly different motivating factor — he has been living with the disease he studies, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), for almost as long as he can . . .

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FDA Grants Orphan Drug Designation to Acceleron Pharma’s ACE-083 Muscle Growth Drug for Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease

On Mar. 5, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarded Orphan Drug designation to Acceleron Pharma’s ACE-083, a locally acting muscle agent, for treating Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT). Delivered by intramuscular injection, ACE-083 is based on the naturally occurring protein follistatin and is designed to enhance the body’s own promoters of muscle growth, specifically in . . .

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