Larry Luxner,  —

With so much recent publicity surrounding gene therapy, it’s no surprise that the topic was a major focus of the recent 2019 NORD Rare Diseases & Orphan Products Breakthrough Summit. From diagnosis and clinical trial design to manufacturing, pricing strategies, and ethical concerns, gene therapy — both its high…

Despite skyrocketing healthcare costs, President Trump is committed to protecting the 30 million or so Americans with rare diseases and ensuring timely, affordable access to lifesaving treatments, the nation’s highest-ranking health official said. “We have to think about how our financing system can protect those with serious and rare illnesses.

A glance around the walls of Barry J. Byrne’s office reveals a lot about the pediatric cardiologist who runs the Powell Gene Therapy Center at University of Florida (UF). In one corner is an unusual painting by 9-year-old Will Barkowsky of Jacksonville, Fla. Will, the first boy with…

CureDuchenne has begun taking blood samples and skin biopsies to facilitate research on new treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The CureDuchenne Biobank is a partnership involving neurologist Tahseen Mozaffar, MD, of the University of California-Irvine and RUCDR Infinite Biologics of Piscataway, New Jersey.

About 700 people have registered to attend CureDuchenne’s Futures conference taking place Oct. 11-13 in suburban Los Angeles — more than six times the number of participants at the November 2018 Futures meeting near Boston. The annual gathering, to be held at Anaheim’s Disneyland Hotel, will be the largest…

Next month’s annual conference of the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) in Washington, D.C., couldn’t come at a better time, says Marshall Summar, MD, chairman of NORD’s board of directors. “The pace of discovery in rare diseases has gone from brisk to hypersonic,” Summar told Bionews Services, publisher…

Many people are inspired by a son or brother with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). When it comes to Danielle Edwards, she’s literally made the disease her career. Edwards, 26, is the community engagement manager at the Jett Foundation, a Massachusetts charity that helps families deal with the emotional and…

Developing gene therapies for rare diseases is one thing. Creating gene-edited “designer babies” is quite another. German legal expert Timo Minssen outlined the potentially explosive ethical landmines surrounding such issues during a recent talk at the New York Genome Center. Minssen directs the Center for Advanced Studies in…

Imagine living your whole life with a painful disease so rare that only 25 others worldwide have what you have. And that you’re one of just six such people who’ve made it to adulthood. Neena Nizar doesn’t have to imagine. The 41-year-old English professor at Metro Community College in Elkhorn,…

On a recent summer morning off the coast of Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, a dozen Israeli volunteers in wetsuits splashed in the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. But they weren’t there just for fun. The focus of their attention: three young boys gripping specially modified surfboards…