Scientists Reverse Muscular Dystrophy In Dogs

Al writes "Scientists have taken a step toward developing a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) by successfully treating the condition in dogs using a novel genetic technique. The scientists used a method called exon skipping, which involves adding a genetic 'patch' to block transcription of a portion of the gene involved in DMD. This puts the remaining genetic sequence back in order, essentially creating a much less severe version of the condition. The scientists recorded some remarkable video footage showing the resulting improvements in several dogs with naturally-occurring DMD. More work is needed before the treatment can be given to humans, however, because DMD sufferers often have different genetic mutations."

Re:Beware

[brian0918]

"IE"? What is that? I cannot recall... :P

Re:Beware

[PrescriptionWarning]

wait slashdotters don't use IE... Imposter! Who are you and what have you done with the owner of that computer!

Does this mean...

[Jonah Bomber]

...the end of Labor Day Weekend Telathons? What will Jerry Lewis do now? Guess my 25 cents in a fireman's boot actually worked.

Re:Beware

[Anonymous Coward]

"IE"? What is that? I cannot recall... :P

It's more commonly known as "the Firefox downloading tool".

Patch Tuesdays?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this does work, will our descendants have to deal with a more personal variation of Patch Tuesdays??

I read the headline as...

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason, I read the headline as "Scientists Reverse Muscular Dystrophy in Frogs". Reading that, I thought, "Well no wonder the French love Jerry Lewis".

I can see it now

[Rayban]

# patch -p0 < cure-md.patch

File to patch: chromosone/18
patching file chromosone/18
Hunk #1 FAILED at 47.
Hunk #2 FAILED at 128.
Hunk #3 FAILED at 308.
Hunk #4 FAILED at 316.
Hunk #5 FAILED at 328.
Hunk #6 FAILED at 342.
Hunk #7 FAILED at 397.
Hunk #8 FAILED at 708.
Hunk #9 FAILED at 1268.
9 out of 9 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file
chromosone/18.rej

Re:Patch Tuesdays?

[SnarfQuest]

Will they usee same level of quality control as Microsoft?

Re:Tag: whatcouldpossiblygowrong

[vishbar]

The absolute worst thing that could go wrong is that the people being treated die from the treatment

Nuh-uh. Did you ever see 28 Days Later?

Zombies. The worst thing that could go wrong are zombies.

Re:Tag: whatcouldpossiblygowrong

[thedonger]

Did you ever see 28 Days Later?

Oh yeah, did you ever see "28 Days" with Sandra Bullock? Now that is some scary shit...

Re:Beware

[Mister Whirly]

If I quit every job I had every time someone higher up decided something stupid, I would be permanently unemployed.
It's called "work" for a reason. If it was fun, it would be called "fun", and financial compensation would not be required...

Re:Tag: whatcouldpossiblygowrong

[Xaedalus]

Really? If I were the betting type, I'd say just about everyone is almost certainly going to die

"Just about" everyone is "almost certainly" going to die? Last time I checked, I'd say EVERYONE is going to die. The only questions are "when", and "by what". Of course, I could be wrong, there are ALWAYS statistical outliers...

Re:Tag: whatcouldpossiblygowrong

[nycguy]

As a zombie, I'll tell you right now that I try to stay away from genetically modified people, and I think they should be banned from the food chain.