
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 2012
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DMD/BMD — Atsushi Asakura, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“Asakura uses an inverted microscope to capture images of satellite cells, which play essential roles in muscle regenerat...”
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EDMD — Mary Baylies, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy (EDMD)“Like human muscle fibers, each fiber in a fruit fly (drosophila) is multinucleated and has a distinct size and shape. Un...”
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CMT — Bogdan Beirowski, M.D., Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT)“Beirowski is studying the loss of axons in Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT). (Axons are the long fibers through which n...”
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CMS — Paul Brehm, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Congenital Myasthenic Syndromes (CMS)“Brehm and Dr. Mike Linhoff at their array tomography setup, where they are generating high-resolution images of the zebr...”
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DMD/BMD — Dean Burkin, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“Burkin is working to test the hypothesis that laminin-111 protein therapy can prevent muscle damage after disease onset ...”
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CMD — Kevin Campbell, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Congenital Muscular Dystrophy (CMD)“Longtime MDA grantee Kevin Campbell says current research aims to identify proteins that contribute to the initiation of...”
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FSHD — Joel Chamberlain, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSH, FSHD)“Many years of research have led recently to an understanding of the unique series of molecular events necessary to cause...”
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DMD — Tathagata Chaudhuri, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“Adult human stem cells derived from bone marrow are called mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs. Those pictured above have be...”
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DMD/BMD — Adam Engler, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“This high-resolution image, taken using a microscopy technique called immunofluorescence, shows adipose-derived stem cel...”
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DMD/BMD — David Gokhin, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“In this image, taken with a microscopy technique called transmission electron microscopy, the "stair-step" pattern indic...”
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EDMD/LGMD/CMT — Yosef Gruenbaum, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy (EDMD)“Yosef Gruenbaum in his lab, using a stereo microscope. Gruenbaum is working to identify the underlying mechanisms of Eme...”
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CMD — Madhuri Hegde, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Congenital Muscular Dystrophy (CMD)““As more genes are identified, it is likely that the boundaries between CMD and other forms of neuromuscular diseases,...”
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DMD/BMD — Veronica Hinton, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)““Although our work does not focus on muscle function,” Hinton says, “the goal is to contribute to the ‘whole’ ...”
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MM - Mito. Myopathy — Michio Hirano, M.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Mitochondrial Myopathies (MM)“Hirano and postdoctoral fellow Caterina Garone review the results of a “Western blot,” a test that is used to detect...”
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AMD — Dwight Koeberl, M.D., Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Metabolic Myopathies“"Gene therapy has advanced considerably in recent years," Koeberl says. “The goal of this project is to address remain...”
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SBMA — Andrew Lieberman, M.D., Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Spinal-Bulbar Muscular Atrophy (SBMA)“Lieberman and colleagues have identified a small molecule in cell models and in research mice that may help degrade the ...”
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MG — Feng Lin, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Myasthenia Gravis (MG)“Lin's work potentially could lead to a new treatment for myasthenia gravis.”
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MG — Lin Mei, M.D., Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Myasthenia Gravis (MG)“Mei’s work is expected to help determine a role for LRP4 in the MG disease process and elucidate underlying molecular ...”
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DMD/BMD — Joseph Metzger, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“The concept of a molecular "Band-Aid" has the potential to one day enhance the lives of those affected by muscular dystr...”
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DMD/BMD — Daniel Michele, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“Michele is working to determine the mechanisms underlying muscle fatigue in muscular dystrophies (MD). His work could le...”
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CMT/FA — Jeffrey Milbrandt, M.D., Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT)“Milbrandt and colleagues are studying neuropathy, a potentially debilitating condition caused by abnormal nerve function...”
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ALS — Alex Parker, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“Green fluorescent protein illuminates the muscle-controlling nerve cells called motor neurons in a C. elegans (nematode,...”
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DMD/BMD — Rita Perlingeiro, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“Perlingeiro and colleagues invented and continue to refine a method to efficiently generate immature skeletal muscle cel...”
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MG — JianRong Sheng, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Myasthenia Gravis (MG)“Sheng prepares the media used to culture immune cells, such as T cells and B cells, taken from mice with a disease resem...”
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LGMD — Melissa Spencer, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (LGMD)“Pictured: A depiction of the biomolecular structure of the calpain 3 protein, showing the molecule's four different "dom...”
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DMD/BMD — Tom Thompson, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“The myostatin protein inhibits the size and mass of muscle. Thompson is studying several strategies for myostatin inhibi...”
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MMD — Charles Thornton, M.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Myotonic Dystrophy (DM)“Thornton is working to engineer mice that show the typical signs of myotonic muscular dystrophy (MMD) in skeletal muscle...”
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FSHD — Rossella Tupler, M.D., Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSH, FSHD)““Discovery of genetic mutations in genes possibly involved in FSHD onset will provide tools for clinical practice and ...”
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ALS — Christine Vande Velde, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“In this image, generated with an imaging technique called confocal microscopy, a cell shows stress granules after exposu...”
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ALS — Marc Weisskopf, Sc.D., Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“The understanding of nongenetic risk factors for ALS is still very limited, because only recently have scientists begun ...”
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MMD — Thurman Wheeler, M.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Myotonic Dystrophy (DM)“A fluorescence microscope image showing advanced muscle disease in a mouse model of myotonic dystrophy. Muscle fibers ar...”
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DMD/BMD — Ryan Wuebbles, Ph.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD)“Wuebbles hopes his work will help laminin-111-based therapies for Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies move quickly ...”
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CMT — Stephan Züchner, M.D.
Grant Announced: Summer 2012Disease Type: Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT)““Our work will eventually help to better define the genetic basis of CMT, analyze multigenic effects, and use small bi...”