News

A post-doctoral fellowship award has been given to Carlos Roberto Hernandez-Castillo, Ph.D. of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexica, Coyoacan, Mexico to study the neuropathology of spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 (SCA7) is an extremely rare genetic disorder that affects a brain area known as the cerebellum, which controls coordination.

The National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) announced in December 2014 the funding of 23 important ataxia research projects in the United States, Mexico, Belgium, Portugal, United Kingdom and Germany. One of the projects awarded within the United States is led by Dr. Jeremy D. Schmahmann from …

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…

The National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) has announced that Dr. Susan Perlman was recently awarded a Research Grant to build a web-based National Ataxia Database (NAD). Susan Perlman is a professor in the Department of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA…

In a recent study entitled “Genome-Engineering Tools to Establish Accurate Reporter Cell Lines That Enable Identification of Therapeutic Strategies to Treat Friedreich’s Ataxia” a team of researchers described a new system that allows the identification of novel molecular pathways responsible for Friedreich’s Ataxia, as well as potential new…