Aikaterini Kontrogianni-Konstantopoulos, an associate professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, was awarded an MDA research grant totaling $300,000 over three years to study how the Myosin Binding Protein-C family of proteins may regulate contractile function of skeletal muscle in distal muscular dystrophy . . .
Robert Burgess, a professor at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, has been awarded an MDA research grant totaling $300,000 over three years. Burgess and co-investigator Scott Harper, associate professor at Nationwide Children’s Hospital Center for Gene Therapy in Columbus, Ohio, will test an AAV gene therapy approach to specifically block the altered form . . .
Ricardo Maselli, a professor in the neurology department at the University of California Davis was awarded an MDA research grant totaling $300,000 over three years to test whether transplantation of stem cells engineered to secrete a needed protein could be a beneficial treatment strategy in congenital myasthenic syndromes (CMS). If studies in a mouse model are . . .
Liza Pon, professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University in New York was awarded an MDA research grant totaling $300,000 over three years to study the underlying mechanisms at work in CHKB congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD). Pon also will test whether therapies that promote function of a protein known as the ryanodine receptor . . .
Montserrat Samso, assistant professor in the department of physiology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, was awarded an MDA research grant totaling $300,000 over three years to generate a crystal structure of the ryanodine receptor (RyR1), an intracellular calcium channel, at high resolution and in different conformational states, with and without disease-causing mutations, to allow . . .
Jeffrey Rothstein, professor of neurology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, was awarded an MDA research grant totaling $300,000 over three years to elucidate the mechanisms underlying ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) caused by mutations in the C9ORF72 gene. Rothstein will use ALS patient-derived stem cells to investigate the role of . . .
Gary Armstrong, a senior post-doctoral researcher at Université de Montréal in Quebec, Canada, was awarded a development grant totaling $177,670 over three years to further understanding of the synaptic defects that occur in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). Abnormalities arising at the neuromuscular junction occur early in animal models of the disease and very little is . . .
Criss Hartzell, professor of cell biology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga., recently was awarded an MDA research grant to study the ANO5 gene. Mutations in the gene have been implicated in both type 2L limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) and a subtype of Miyoshi distal muscular dystrophy (a type of distal muscular dystrophy, . . .
By Laura Hagerty, Ph.D., MDA’s DMD Scientific Program Officer On September 7, 2015, MDA will rally alongside our Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) community — kids, adults, families, caregivers and others — as we recognize World Duchenne Awareness Day. And as we move toward that day, there’s a palpable feeling of excitement in the air. For . . .
By Amanda M. Haidet-Phillips, Ph.D., MDA’s ALS Scientific Program Officer As the month of August comes to an end, and the 2015 ALS Ice Bucket Challenge with it, I want to share with you some exciting new research news. MDA has announced the award of 36 new research and development grants, totaling nearly $10 million, . . .
