The article I chose this week discusses the posibility of improving the condition of people with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, or even one day curing the disease. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (MD) is a inherited disease involving rapid muscle weakness. Tragically, this disease appears in children before age 6, and by age 12 they lose the ability to walk (confined to braces if they are lucky, or a wheelchair). As the article states, it is rare that children with Duchenne live past their mid-twenties. It is a horrible disease and as of yet there is no cure and little that can be done. I lost a friend to the disease in my childhood, and only now do I really understand what had happened (which is why I couldn't look for a picture of MD... but I would guess that the Google images would be saddening for anyone). This article discusses using a technique called "exon skipping" to repair the muscular RNA throughout the patient's body. It has been proven to be effective in dystrophic dogs, and test have shown an increase in some missing proteins within human muscle. Hopefully we will see a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy very soon.
http://www.fox23news.com/content/healthalert/story/Duchennes-Muscular-Dystrophy-A-dogs-solution/Pfx1BmJx8ESqrthd5OOGAQ.cspx
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