Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease

A two-year, large-scale trial of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in people with type 1A Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT1A) conducted in Italy and the United Kingdom has found the substance had no significant effect on the disease compared with a placebo. Ascorbic acid was taken orally at 1.5 grams per day in this study. An ongoing U.S.-based trial (now closed to recruitment) is testing ascorbic acid in CMT1A at a dosage of 4 grams per day for two years.

Moving therapeutic strategies from the laboratory to clinical trials and ultimately to the market as treatments was the theme of the MDA National Scientific Conference held March 13-16, 2011, in Las Vegas.

Some 300 people attended the conference, the first in a planned series of such MDA-sponsored meetings that will emphasize new research and current medical care. The majority of presenters and many of the audience members were current or former MDA research grantees or physicians at MDA-supported clinics.

Congenital myasthenic syndromes

A multinational team of scientists has identified mutations in the gene for glutamine-fructose-6-phosphate transaminase 1 (GFPT1) as responsible for some forms of a congenital myasthenic syndrome (CMS).

The Muscular Dystrophy Association has awarded 44 grants totaling $13.5 million to support research efforts aimed at advancing understanding of disease processes and uncovering new strategies for treatments and cures of muscular dystrophy and the more than 40 other diseases in the Association’s program.

The new grants were reviewed by MDA’s Scientific and Medical Advisory Committees, and approved by MDA’s Board of Directors at its December meeting.

Researchers at the University of Michigan are seeking 30 young adults, ages 18-29, who have had symptoms of certain forms of muscular dystrophy or myopathy since birth, to complete an online survey that asks about their perceived quality of life and level of independence.

The study also is recruiting 30 adults with no neuromuscular disease.

Results will be used to identify ways that counselors and therapists can address specific factors considered important by people with congenital muscle diseases (present at or near birth).

MDA has awarded 38 new research grants totaling more than $14 million and covering more than a dozen neuromuscular diseases. 

MDA's Board of Directors met in Los Angeles July 16, where it reviewed and approved the new grants based on recommendations from the MDA Scientific and Medical Advisory Committees. Grants were scored and recommended for approval based on the capabilities of the applicant, the scientific merit of the project, and the proposal's relevance to developing treatments for the disease. The effective start date for all grants was July 1, 2010.

Much attention has been paid to gene therapy and stem cell strategies for treating muscle diseases, but several less dramatic strategies also appear to hold potential, especially if used in conjunction with more definitive therapies to enhance their effectiveness.

In the early 1990s, amid great excitement, six trials took place of transplants of immature muscle cells from healthy relatives into boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. (Five were funded by MDA.)

Speakers at an MDA-sponsored workshop held June 14 in Tucson, Ariz., as part of a larger meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), presented a variety of reports about muscle stem cell experiments and clinical trials.

Myoblast transfer

Louis Kunkel, molecular geneticist and MDA grantee at Children's Hospital of Boston, revisited the myoblast transfer trials of the early 1990s.