News

FightSMA, an all-volunteer, parent-led nonprofit, reported that the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has, as part of the Fiscal Year 2017 Defense Appropriations bill, included for a first time spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) as a research topic in the Defense Department’s Peer-Reviewed Medical Research Program. FightSMA calls this welcome…

Cure SMA recently announced that Christine DiDonato has been awarded a $70,000 research grant for her research study, “Assessing mediators of muscle weakness in SMA mice.” DiDonato is a basic science researcher who lives in Chicago and is currently working as an associate professor in the Department of…

AveXis presented positive pulmonary data from an interim analysis of its ongoing Phase 1 trial of AVXS-101 for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type 1. The presentation, by Richard Shell, M.D., a member of the Section of Pulmonary Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, was made at the recent 2016 International Conference…

FightSMA has released a video from its Clinical Trial Panel, featuring a discussion among 10 physicians and scientists on the latest research developments in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), that was part of its recent 2016 Annual Research Conference. The video release is the first of several planned from events at…

University of Missouri researchers have developed a gene replacement therapy for spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress type 1 (SMARD1). The therapy is able to cross the protective blood-brain barrier and target affected motor neurons in a non-invasive manner. The research paper describing the remarkable development, “Rescue of a…

AveXis presented a positive interim analysis of data from its ongoing Phase 1 trial of AVXS-101 for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type 1. The presentation, by Jerry Mendell, MD, director of the Center for Gene Therapy at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, was given at the recent 19th Annual Meeting…

FightSMA, an Richmond, Virginia, based all-volunteer, parent-led nonprofit, has released an update on the status of clinical trials it is currently supporting. Founded in 1991 by Joe and Martha Slay after their son Andrew was diagnosed with SMA (spinal muscular atrophy), with a mission to “strategically accelerate” research to…

Johns Hopkins University researcher Dr. Charlotte Sumner, M.D., has been granted a Cure SMA award of $140,000 for her project, “Assessing the reversibility of proximal axon abnormalities in SMA mice.” Photo Credit: Cure SMA Sumner is a specialized adult neurologist with training in neuromuscular disease and spinal…

Astellas Pharmaceuticals is featuring Cure SMA on its new ‘Changing Tomorrow Together’ website, an online resource created by the company to stimulate dialogue and the sharing of ideas and information across disease advocacy communities. The Cure SMA feature is a “spotlight piece” written by the group’s research director, Jill Jarecki.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals recently presented an update of its ongoing open-label Phase 2 clinical study of nusinersen, often called Ionis-SMN,  in infants with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) at the 2016 American Academy of Neurology meeting. According to the results, the investigational compound increased event-free survival, muscle function, and neuromuscular physiology, while no safety and tolerability…