Blog Archives

Généthon, founded by the AFM-Téléthon, and Selecta Biosciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced that Nature Communications has published their jointly authored paper entitled “Antigen-selective modulation of AAV immunogenicity with tolerogenic rapamycin nanoparticles enables successful vector re-administration”. A world first ! The pre-clinical study led by Genethon demonstrated that co-administration of synthetic vaccine particles encapsulating … [Read more]

This study, which is part of the Expanded Access Program (EAP; NCT02865109), evaluated the safety and clinical efficacy of nusinersen in 33 children (aged between 8.3 to 113.1 months) with spinal muscular atrophy type 1 (SMA1). Patients were evaluated before treatment initiation (M0) and at 2 months (M2) and 6 months (M6) after treatment initiation. … [Read more]

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an autosomal recessive neuromuscular disorder characterized by progressive degeneration of lower motor neurons in the spinal cord, resulting in skeletal muscle atrophy and muscle weakness. Increasing evidence suggests that impaired neuromuscular junction (NMJ) can also be present in SMA. The authors of the present study recently reported the association between … [Read more]

Congenital muscular dystrophies (CMDs) and congenital myopathies (CMs) constitute the two most important groups of congenital onset muscle diseases. They represent a heterogeneous group of disorders of the muscle characterized by an early onset of hypotonia and muscle weakness and consequently, a high respiratory morbidity and mortality. The diagnosis and characterization of the weakness of … [Read more]

Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) are a group of acquired autoimmune disorders that mainly affect the skeletal muscle tissue. Classification criteria of IIM are comprised of polymyositis, dermatomyositis, inclusion body myositis and immune-mediated necrotizing myopathies. One important hallmark of autoimmune diseases is the detection of autoantibodies in patient sera. The anti-SRP (signal recognition particle) and anti-HMGCR … [Read more]

This case report describes an 18-year-old man with a history of intellectual disability, dysmorphic features diabetes mellitus type 1, and thyroiditis related to an 18p deletion (18p-) syndrome. He developed progressive left leg muscle weakness/atrophy that suggested an inflammatory myopathy. The patient carried an 18p deletion, two potentially permissive 4qA alleles, and marked D4Z4 (sized … [Read more]