News

In recognition that people with muscular dystrophy are living longer than even recently thought possible, the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) has named a young man as its latest National Goodwill Ambassador — marking the first time in the program’s 64-year history that a child hasn’t been selected for that role.

Jiffy Lube International has raised more than $1 million dollars in a campaign to support the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). The company holds more than 2,000 franchised oil change service centers and has partnered with MDA for the fourth year to support children and adults who suffer from muscular dystrophy,…

The Kessler Foundation and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) will share a $5 million federal grant, titled Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Wearable Robots, to develop a wearable robotic exoskeleton for use in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), as well as other applications for spinal cord injury and stroke.

More than a dozen children in the Tampa, Florida area with muscular dystrophy, Down’s syndrome, and other neuromuscular disorders will soon be getting new and specially adapted bicycles donated by the ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine. The 17 young recipients are from the local chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) and …

Advances in stem cell therapy using patients’ own cells with genetically modified dystrophin have been hampered by the large size of the dystrophin gene, which are difficult to pack into a delivery system. Now, scientists at University College London have managed to produce a gene construct much bigger than was…

Regenerative medicine is a branch of research that deals with the process of replacing, engineering or regenerating human cells, tissues, or organs to restore or establish normal function. But a major challenge in this field has been delivering treatments to control cellular behavior. One possible strategy to overcome this problem is to…

Comedian and actor Jerry Lewis, the longtime Muscular Dystrophy Association national chairman and host of the organization’s former Labor Day Telethon, is returning from his retired role with the groundbreaking charity that revolutionized public philanthropic giving in America. Lewis helped introduce MDA’s revitalized brand on Jan. 29, when the Chicago-based charity…

Akashi Therapeutics announced they are suspending both dosing and patient enrollment in the HALO trial – a study investigating their experimental therapy, HT-100, in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The trial’s suspension came after a patient enrolled in the highest dose-group of the study began experiencing life-threatening adverse effects. At this time,…

Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., recently announced that the first part of its MoveDMD clinical trial, a Phase 1/2 study of CAT-1004 in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), has received positive top-line results, and it will soon begin the study’s second phase. “We are pleased with these results and believe that…

Duke University graduate student Mark Juhas is engineering a highly functional skeletal muscle tissue that has shown great promise and might constitute a valuable model for treatment of muscular dystrophy and other disorders, such as myositis, the inflammation and deterioration of the muscle tissue. According to the National Institute of Neurological…