Editor's note 2/7/11: This article was updated to reflect that Pallavi Anand is the primary coordinator for the Missouri site.

Finding out whether or not an experimental treatment helps individuals with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) requires that researchers know the usual course of the disease and have measurements that will show if a treatment is changing the disease course.

People with genetic neuromuscular diseases who want to “do something for science” now have a way to do so, although they’re unlikely to ever know the results of their good deed.

A large-scale, phase 3 trial of idebenone (Catena) in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is now open at one U.S. site and several sites in Europe, under the auspices of Santhera Pharmaceuticals.

Editor's note: This story was updated April 27, 2012.

Immune-system rejection of newly synthesized dystrophin protein occurred in at least some of the boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) who participated in a safety trial of dystrophin gene therapy.

The finding was a partial surprise to researchers and demonstrates the value of small, phase 1 clinical trials.

Luring away myostatin, and possibly other proteins that inhibit muscle growth, using a gene for a "decoy receptor" increased muscle size and strength in mice with a muscle disease resembling human Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a new study has found.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $7 million to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and designated the institution a Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center (Wellstone MDCRC).

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) requires the presence of not one but two genetic changes, both on chromosome 4, before it causes its characteristic symptoms — weakness starting in the muscles of the face, shoulder blade area and upper arms, with possible progression to other parts of the body.

The new findings, announced online Aug. 19, 2010, in the journal Science, have immediate implications for diagnosis and prediction of FSHD, and possible long-term implications for its treatment.