Maureen Newman,  —

Patients with Friedreich’s ataxia may have more damage to brain cells than was previously thought. A study from University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany led by Dr. Maria R. Stefanescu and principal investigator Dr. Dagmar Timmann used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the levels of atrophy in various…

A research group in Germany at University of Regensburg that considers Friedreich’s ataxia “the most important recessive ataxia in the Caucasian population” is breaking down the complex disease using genetically modified fruit flies. Appearing in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine, their most…

Inhibitors of 2-aminobenzamide histone deacetylase (HDAC) are a proposed new treatment for Friedreich’s ataxia. Applying HDAC inhibitors to neuronal cells derived from Friedreich’s ataxia patients’ induced-pluriopotent stem cells results in an increased expression of frataxin mRNA transcripts and protein. A group of researchers at The Scripps Research Institute in…

The vast majority of patients with Friedreich’s ataxia develop symptoms in the first or second decade of life, enabling an early diagnosis and early medical attention to alleviate symptoms of the disease. However, a small number of patients develop late-onset Friedreich’s ataxia (LOFA) between the ages of 25 and…

Although German physician Nikolaus Friedreich first recognized Friedreich’s ataxia in 1863, it was not until 1996 that two scientific teams discovered the underlying cause of the disease: a mutation in the gene for frataxin protein. Since that time, researchers have identified two types of mutations that cause Friedreich’s ataxia…

At Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, researchers are developing a genetic toolkit to help study ataxia. Marife Arancillo, PhD, was awarded a Post-Doc Fellowship Award for her work in “Neural Mechanisms of Cerebellar Function in Ataxia.” As part of this…

As the most prevalent form of ataxia, Friedreich’s ataxia represents a major focus for research in the field of understanding disease mechanisms. Rising to the demand is researcher Simona Donatello, PhD at Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Begium. Dr. Donatello was recognized by the National Ataxia Foundation…

Joining Friedreich’s Ataxia in the list of ataxias is spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3), also known as Machado-Joseph disease. This disease is caused by mutations in the gene encoding protein ataxin-3 (ATXN3), unlike Friedreich’s ataxia, which is caused by a mutation in the gene encoding frataxin protein (FXN). Similar…

Earning the Pioneer SCA Translational Research Award from the National Ataxia Foundation, Thorsten Schmidt, PhD at University of Tubingen in Germany is developing a novel treatment for spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3). His winning research, “Targeting the Intracellular Localization of Ataxin-3…

Reata Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced that it has enrolled the first patient in a new Friedreich’s Ataxia clinical trial in collaboration with AbbVie, and the Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance. In their currently recruiting phase 2/3 clinical trial, “RTA 408 Capsules in Patients with Friedreich’s Ataxia – MOXIe,”…