Hawken Miller,  features writer—

Football and science seem to be disparate fields of play at first glance, but the nonprofit Uplifting Athletes is finding common ground by leveraging the popularity of college gridiron games to fund research for rare diseases. Its nearly two dozen chapters — representing college football teams across the nation…

People with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) are living longer, attending college, pursuing a variety of careers, and traveling more, thanks to a combination of new disease-modifying therapies, better quality care, and improved rights for those with disabilities. It also means they now are encountering unique sets of challenges in…

Participate in a paintball war. Meet Snoop Dogg. Be the first disabled person to go to space. These are just a few of the 40-plus items on Zarek DeMarco Elizondo’s bucket list. With his older brother, Zachary Markel Elizondo, by his side, Zarek, who has spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)…

Today, the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) is officially launching its MDA Quest Podcast, which will feature conversations with neuromuscular disease patients, doctors, family, caregivers, and others touched by the community in some way. Hosted by Mindy Henderson, who has spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type 2, the podcast will…

Ayah Lundt, a 15-month-old Danish girl with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type 2, is helping bring the world together as her parents race to raise $2.4 million for a single dose of Zolgensma before she…

As anyone affected by a rare disease knows, treating the illness while trying to go about everyday life is an expensive undertaking.  But exactly how expensive — in terms of direct and indirect costs across rare disease populations — might still come as a surprise: almost…

Many diseases have their own awareness color — breast cancer is pink, muscular dystrophy is green, and AIDS is red, for example — but what’s the significance of pink, green, blue, and purple lights side-by-side? These are the colors most often used to represent Rare Disease Day. This…

When Josylnn Jones McLaughlin moved to Guangzhou, China, to teach conversational English in 2012, she didn’t expect to bring home two girls, one with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and the other with spina bifida, when she returned to Anderson, South Carolina, more than a year later. She certainly…

Diagnosed with sickle cell disease as a 6-month-old, Tristan Lee has faced a lot of challenges over his 37 years of life. But from a young age, he also learned how to turn those trials into triumphs. At age 9, a stroke due to his disease left him paralyzed…

It’s now been more than four years since Spinraza (nusinersen) was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and presymptomatic children with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) who received the therapy as part of the Phase 2 NURTURE trial are growing up fast and, by all accounts, showing…