Category: Huntingtons Disease

The British government published its draft bill to overhaul the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act this week and it differs from the White Paper introduced late last year in that research using part human part animal embryos is to be allowed after all.

Subtle signs can help doctors predict that a person will develop Huntington’s disease in the next few years, according to a study published in the May 15, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Huntington’s disease is a genetic disorder that affects movement, thinking, and some aspects of personality. There is no treatment or cure for the disease.

Researchers from four organizations have identified more than 200 new proteins that bind to normal and mutant forms of the protein that causes Huntington’s disease (HD). HD is a fatal inherited disease that affects 30,000 Americans annually by laying waste to their nervous system. The research was led by Buck Institute faculty member Robert E. Hughes, PhD.

The identification of more than 200 new proteins that interact with the mutated protein that causes Huntington’s disease opens the door to developing treatments for the fatal neurodegenerative disorder, said a Baylor College of Medicine researcher who took part in the work that appears online in the journal Public Library of Science Genetics.

A study to appear in the June 2007 issue of The FASEB Journal describes a new agent, called “Zorro-LNA,” which has the potential to stop genetic disorders in their tracks. In the study, researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, describe how they developed Zorro-LNA to bind with both strands of a gene’s DNA simultaneously, effectively disabling that gene.

With May’s Huntington’s Disease Awareness Month as a backdrop, the Avicena Group, a California based biotech company, is set to launch a clinical trial for a new drug therapy, HD-02, with the ultimate aim of delaying the onset of this incurable, fatal disease. If successful, this compound would signal a significant advancement in the treatment of Huntington’s disease and finally provide hope for 150,000 Americans who are carriers of the deadly Huntington’s gene.

Avicena Group, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: AVGOE), a late stage biotechnology company focused on commercializing its proprietary cellular energy modulation technology, announced today that it has filed a composition of matter patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to cover potential treatments for Huntington’s disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disease.

Huntington’s disease, an inherited neurodegenerative disorder that affects roughly 30,000 Americans, is incurable and fatal. But a new discovery about how cells repair their DNA points to a possible way to stop or slow the onset of the disease. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

To function, each living cell needs both to build new and to degrade old or damaged proteins. To accomplish that, a number of intracellular systems work in concert to keep the cell healthy and from clogging up with damaged proteins. When proteins or peptides mutate, they can present major problems to the clearing up of the intracellular environment.

McMaster scientists are very close to defining small molecule drugs that should be able to redirect the huntingtin protein from accumulating in the wrong place within brain cells, which could potentially translate to a therapy for Huntington’s Disease (HD).There is currently no way to stop or reverse the progression of Huntington’s Disease, which affects one in 10,000 Americans. It is a progressive, and eventually fatal, genetic neurological disease.