Quest Magazine

In July, days before the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate went into recess, bipartisan legislation was introduced in both houses to strengthen research into pediatric diseases.

The Muscular Dystrophy Association has awarded 33 new grants totaling $10,684,481 to fund research projects focused on uncovering the causes of, and developing therapies for, neuromuscular disease.

MDA's Board of Directors reviewed and approved the new grants based on recommendations from the Association's Scientific and Medical Advisory Committees, and the grants took effect Aug. 1.

If you or someone in your family has or is suspected of having a mitochondrial myopathy or other disorder of the mitochondria, the North American Mitochondrial Disease Consortium (NAMDC) would like to hear from you.

Exon skipping is an experimental therapeutic strategy in which regions — exons— of a gene are targeted and blocked ("skipped") by laboratory-designed molecules. The goal is that the remaining genetic instructions will lead to production of a shorter but still-functional protein.

Researchers supported in part by MDA have recently found evidence that production of the full-length version of a protein known as DUX4— previously associated exclusively with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD)— also can occur in people who don't have the disease.

Human cells treated with engineered transcription activation-like effector (TALE) proteins produced two to three times more frataxin protein than did control cells, a team of researchers has reported.