
Hope Through Research
At MDA, we take a big picture perspective across the full spectrum of neuromuscular diseases to uncover scientific and medical breakthroughs that accelerate treatments and cures. The power in our research approach is that we can often apply learnings from one disease to progress in others to bring urgently-needed answers to our families.
Grants at a Glance - Summer 2010
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ALS — Stanley H. Appel
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“"In ALS, neurons do not die alone," Appel said. Injury to, and death of, the cells results from "crosstalk" among certai...”
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DMD/BMD — Zolt Arany
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“"MDA has had an important impact on research in muscular dystrophy," Zolt said. "Without MDA support, we would not be ab...”
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PP — Kurt Beam
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Endocrine Myopathies“"Our MDA research project, 'voltage sensor for excitation-contraction coupling,' seeks to understand how skeletal muscle...”
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ALS — Michael Benatar
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“"MDA funding has been absolutely critical for this study," Benatar said, noting that the "strength" of the study lies in...”
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DMD/BMD — Carmen Bertoni
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Under the microscope: Cross sections of muscle analyzed for dystrophin, the protein missing but needed in Duchenne muscu...”
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DMD/BMD — Michele Calos
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Pictured: cross-section of a normal mouse leg muscle that has been stained for dystrophin, the protein missing in Duchen...”
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MMD — Ju Chen
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Myotonic Dystrophy (DM)“Voluntary (skeletal) muscle at 100 times magnification.”
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DMD/BMD — Dawn Cornelison
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“"My lab works to understand how satellite cells, the stem cells of skeletal muscle, act to efficiently and reproducibly ...”
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LGMD — Richard Cripps
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (LGMD)“In completed studies, Cripps and colleagues observed that fruit flies with flawed Trim32 genes exhibit muscle degenerati...”
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DMD/BMD — Sean Forbes
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Forbes stands near a 4.7 Tesla magnet at the Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy (AMRIS) facility at th...”
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CMS — Michael Francis
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Congenital Myasthenic Syndromes (CMS)“Francis uses a "patch-clamp electrophysiology setup" to make electrical recordings from the muscles and motor neurons (n...”
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ALS — Brian Freibaum
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“Freibaum will use fruit fly and mouse models, as well as cultured human cell lines, in his three-tiered approach to dete...”
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LGMD — Renzhi Han
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (LGMD)“"We believe this study will not only advance our understanding of the molecular mechanism underlying dysferlin-deficient...”
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ALS — Oliver Hobert
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“Nerve cells called motor neurons in the spinal cord of the nematode (roundworm) C. elegans are labeled with red fluoresc...”
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ALS — Dena Jacob
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“"I'm honored and excited to be a recipient of an MDA Development Grant," Jacob said. "And I look forward to working with...”
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DMD/BMD — Bernard Jasmin
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Jasmin's new research builds on a previous MDA-supported study involving mice with a disease resembling Duchenne muscula...”
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CMT — Albena Jordanova
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT)“Images taken with a scanning electron microscope show (left) the eye of a fruit fly carrying the human YARS protein cont...”
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ALS — Jean-Pierre Julien
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“Julien and colleagues aim to determine how a genetic variant called P413L in the chromogranin B protein increases suscep...”
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IBM — Virginia Kimonis
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Inclusion-Body Myositis (IBM)“Myoblasts (immature muscle cells) taken from people with inclusion-body myopathy associated with Paget's disease of Bone...”
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DMD/BMD — Ashok Kumar
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Kumar prepares muscle cell cultures isolated from animal models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.”
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DMD/BMD — Louis Kunkel
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Louis Kunkel, a longtime MDA adviser and chairman of MDA's Scientific Advisory Committee, was on the MDA-funded scientif...”
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SBMA — Albert La Spada
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Spinal-Bulbar Muscular Atrophy (SBMA)“"MDA funding has been critical in allowing me to aggressively pursue cutting-edge research approaches in my lab," La Spa...”
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DMD/BMD — Gordon Lynch
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Although considerable efforts are ongoing to develop therapies that get at the root of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, such...”
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SMA — John Manfredi
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA)“Manfredi will study the effects of drug compounds designed to support motor neurons (nerve cells) in zebra fish that hav...”
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MMD — Fernando Morales
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Myotonic Dystrophy (DM)“Fernando Morales and colleagues are studying the molecular underpinnings of type 1 myotonic dystrophy. They plan to iden...”
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CCD — Francesco Muntoni
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Endocrine Myopathies“Time-sequence images show calcium waves in cultured immature mouse muscle fibers.”
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DMD/BMD — Josephine Nalbantoglu
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Mouse muscles that have increased levels of proteins called transcription factors (green) produce more of the muscle pro...”
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DMD/BMD — Vihang Narkar
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Aerobic muscle (dark blue) is resistant to fatigue and damage. Narkar's research team is investigating biological pathwa...”
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ALS — Daniel Offen
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“Work funded by Offen's new grant will involve the collaborative effort of two teams of experts: one led by Offen (pictur...”
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MM - Mito. Myopathy — Leo Pallanck
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Mitochondrial Myopathies (MM)“Pallanck and colleagues plan to use a fruit fly research model in their studies because the flies' mitochondria (cellula...”
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ALS — Wilfried Rossoll
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“Motor neurons are specialized nerve cells that control voluntary muscle movement by sending electrical impulses along lo...”
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EDMD — Ji-Yeon Shin
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy (EDMD)“Two 3-month-old littermates: (left) "normal" control mouse; (right) mouse in which LAP1 protein is depleted, or "knocked...”
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ALS — Shanthini Sockanathan
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“Pictured: section of a mouse embryonic spinal cord showing motor neurons (nerve cells) at different stages of developmen...”
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DMD/BMD — Steve Wilton
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)“Wilton (center) poses with members of his research team, along with (left) Jakob Ratnayeke and (right) Conor Murphy. "I ...”
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MM - Mito. Myopathy — Lee-Jun Wong
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Mitochondrial Myopathies (MM)“Support from MDA, Wong said, will play an important role in establishing effective methods for people to get a definitiv...”
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EDMD — Howard Worman
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy (EDMD)“Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy typically involves cardiomyopathy, in which the heart cavity becomes enlarged and stre...”
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ALS — Daniela Zarnescu
Grant Announced: Summer 2010Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“A315T is a mutant form of the TDP43 protein, identified in people with ALS. Zarnescu's team has engineered a fruit fly m...”