Paul Martin, a professor of pediatrics and of physiology and cell biology at Ohio State University College of Medicine, has been awarded an MDA grant totaling $396,000 over three years. The award will help support Martin's study of the possible therapeutic effects of an enzyme called GALGT2 in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

MDA has awarded a research grant totaling $379,500 over three years to Tejvir Khurana, a professor of physiology at the University of Pennsylvania. The grant will support Khurana's research to increase the production of utrophin, a protein that may improve muscle strength and function in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD).

MDA has awarded a grant totaling $384,066 over three years to Emanuela Gussoni, an assistant professor in the division of genetics and program in genomics at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard University.

Peter Currie, a professor of medicine at Monash University in Clayton, Victoria, Australia, was awarded an MDA research grant totaling $375,000 over three years. The funds will help support Currie's research, which involves screening for possible therapeutic molecules using the zebrafish model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

Martin Childers, a professor at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., has been awarded an MDA grant totaling $480,000 over three years. The Institute is part of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Margaret Zacharin, an associate professor in the department of endocrinology and diabetes at Royal Children's Hospital in Parkville, Victoria, Australia, has been awarded an MDA research grant totaling $268,021 over two years. The award will help support a clinical trial of the drug zoledronic acid in children and adolescents with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

MDA has awarded a research grant totaling $278,570 over three years to Jasprina Noordermeer, a professor in the department of molecular cell biology at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. The grant will support Noordermeer's studies of the role of dystrophin in the brain. The dystrophin protein is absent or deficient in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

Diego Fraidenraich, an assistant professor in the department of cell biology & molecular medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, was awarded an MDA grant totaling $375,000 over three years. The funds will support his study of the relationship between muscle and fat formation in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

MDA awarded a research grant totaling $368,100 to professor Steve Wilton at the University of Western Australia in Perth, for continued research into a strategy called "exon skipping," which bypasses mutations in the dystrophin gene responsible for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

Vihang Narkar, assistant professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, was awarded $302,326 to study the potential therapeutic value of increasing the overall amount of a specific type of muscle called "aerobic muscle" in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

Loss of the structural protein dystrophin, the underlying cause of DMD, causes muscle instability, damage and progressive weakness, accompanied by a decrease in the ability to produce energy, along with severe fatigue.