News Releases & Announcements
University of Ottawa study identifies a potential new treatment for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
OTTAWA, September 21, 2009 — A study led by Dr. Bernard Jasmin, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medecine of the University of Ottawa and his colleagues, identified a novel therapeutic approach that could potentially counteract the effects of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a severe and prevalent inherited genetic disorder.
In patients, DMD is caused by an absence of the protein dystrophin thereby resulting in the muscle wasting commonly associated with the disease.
A therapeutic strategy to treat DMD involves identifying compounds that can elevate utrophin expression, a protein that can compensate for the lack of dystrophin in muscle fibers of affected patients and be used as a protection to deficient muscles. In their study, Jasmin and colleagues demonstrate that a clinically-relevant drug can be used for that purpose paving the way for a potential new treatment.
The study is published in the September issue of Human Molecular Genetics released by major academic publisher Oxford Journals.
For more information on Oxford, please visit the journal’s website. [External site.]
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