The National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) has presented a researcher from Belgium, Simona Donatello, with its Young Investigator Research Award for her work on molecular mTOR pathways affecting frataxin expression in Friedreich’s ataxia, possibly unearthing novel drug targets for the treatment of the disease. Dr. Donatello, with the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, aims to…
Among the recently distributed National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) research awards, Ricardo Mouro Pinto, Ph.D., from Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Medical School, received a Young Investigator Award for his work on DNA repair genes that might contribute to the expansion of the GAA repeat mutation in Friedreich’s ataxia. The…
The National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) is funding 20 ataxia research studies during 2016, including six projects in the United States, Italy, Canada, United Kingdom and Portugal that were provided for by the foundation’s Research Seed Money Awards. Among the six financially seeded studies, Dr. Paul Rosenberg, an associate professor,…
The National Ataxia Foundation (NAF), which supports ataxia research, has given a NAF Research Seed Award to Liliana Simões Mendonça from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, for work on the transplantation of neural stem cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells in Machado Joseph disease. Also known as spinocerebellar ataxia type…
A study supported by a research grant from the National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) will explore the underlying mutation of the recently described spinocerebellar ataxia, type 41 (SCA41). In addition to producing new insights into spinocerebellar ataxia mechanisms, the study could contribute to improved diagnostics. Only one case with spinocerebellar ataxia and a…
Su Yang, Ph.D., from Emory University in Atlanta is one of the National Ataxia Foundation postdoctoral fellowship recipients of 2016 for the project titled “Developing the MANF-based therapeutic approach for Spinocerebellar Ataxia 17.” Spinocerebellar Ataxia 17 (SCA17) is an inherited condition characterized by a gradual loss of…
The National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) recently awarded four post-doctoral fellowship grants covering various aspects of ataxia research. In a project focusing on autosomal recessive cerebellar ataxia 2, Pankaj Kumar Singh at the Institut Génétique Biologie Moléculaire Cellulaire, in France, explores how mitochondrial defects contribute to disease mechanisms in…
The National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) recently awarded four post-doctoral fellowship grants covering various aspects of ataxia research. Magda Matos Santana at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, in Portugal, was among the recipients, recognized for her exploration of advanced models based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) of Machado-Joseph disease (MJD)…
Percy Tumbale, of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health recently received a Young Investigator Research Award from the National Ataxia Foundation (NAF), to cover her ongoing research on aprataxin mutations in ataxia oculomotor apraxia 1 (AOA1). Ataxia generally refers to the muscle coordination loss…
A study titled “Oligonucleotide-based Therapy in BAC-Mouse Models of SCA14” by researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle was recognized with a Pioneer SCA (spinocerebellar ataxia) Translational Research Award for its potential to develop a future SCA therapy. Spinocerebellar ataxia type 14 (SCA14) is a dominant ataxia that, unlike Friedreich’s ataxia, is not caused…
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