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."

Is it heritable?

[PotatoFarmer]

I'd be interested to see whether or not the "patch" is heritable; the article doesn't mention it. In any case, it's really impressive work.

Original Article

[Elenseel]

Is there a way to get the original article published by the scientists who developed the technique? My mentorship is heavily rooted in genetic analysis, so I'm interested in these kinds of things.

You raise an interesting point

[RexDevious]

Without even getting into a cost-benefit analysis of *any* form of medical care - it's astonishing how many people die from diseases that can be treated with substances like... food, clean water, even clean air.

Yes, that's right - every Flintstones chewable you give your kid *could* have been money spent on iodine which saves some other kid from life long brain damage.

So let's not kid ourselves into thinking that "survival of the fittest" is a primarily a biological test for mankind anymore. It's an economic one. You're alive and reading this, not because you're the pinnacle of human health and fitness (lol, this *is* slashdot); but more likely because you avoided dying of poverty. Just like me (though I certainly had some close calls).

If we really wanted to, we could save hundreds of millions more people from dying just using the technology we already have. Heck, if we'd been doing that since the dawn of man - I bet we could have overpopulated ourselves right out of existence by now. We may yet.

Instead, we let hundreds or thousands die to gain the ability to save one. Yeah, sometimes it's Dick Cheney, but sometimes it's Stephan Hawkings.

Food gets eaten, medicine gets used up, research budgets get spent - but knowledge and discover remain. There's your cost benefit analysis.

And I write this as both someone who's spent the last year not getting properly treated for a spine injury because my insurance company decided pain pills were cheaper, and who has a sister who's dying of an unprofitably rare disease. But of course, both of us would have died in childhood anyway if it weren't for medical discoveries that didn't exist in our parents generation.