Monica Coenraads is discussing work with two business associates in the living room of her Trumbull, Conn., home on a recent spring morning, when the conversation turns to the benefits of face-to-face communication over reliance on electronic devices.
Suddenly, a squeal of laughter erupts from the other side of the room, where her 17-year-old daughter, Chelsea, has been relaxing on the couch, quietly listening to her mother’s every word.
“Chelsea thinks it’s funny, because she believes her mom spends too much time on her phone,” explains Coenraads, who works from her house.
In homes across America, parents and kids are debating texting, cell phones and screen time.
But for the Coenraads family—Monica, husband Pieter, and sons Alex, 15, and Tyler, 14,—the focus is on discovering any method by which Chelsea can communicate. The slender, brilliant-blue-eyed girl, who bears a striking resemblance to her mother, has Rett syndrome, a rare, genetic, neurological disease that locks her thoughts inside her head, as she is unable to speak or to use her hands. With great determination and without speech or hand gestures, Chelsea expresses herself by focusing her gaze on pictures in a three-ring binder of the words she’d like to say.
“A child with classic Rett syndrome is in a wheelchair, unable to talk, fed through a feeding tube, with seizures, anxiety, orthopedic issues, scoliosis, contractures and no hand function,” said Coenraads, co-founder and executive director of Rett Syndrome Research Trust (RSRT) and its director of research. The former restaurateur is credited with helping to raise more than $37 million for research into Rett syndrome since her daughter’s diagnosis 15 years ago.
“They’re really trapped,” continued Coenraads, explaining the disease, which affects approximately 16,000 girls across the country. “They can understand what is going on; cognitively they are quite on track.”
UMass Medical School scientist Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, globally known for his work in gene regulation, keeps the image of Chelsea and that of other girls who suffer from Rett in mind as he works toward finding a drug that would reverse the disease. Dr. Green, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, the Lambi and Sarah Adams Chair in Genetic Research and professor of molecular medicine and biochemistry & molecular pharmacology, received a $750,000 grant from RSRT for research aimed at reversing the underlying cause of the disorder. He is one of several dozen researchers around the world, recruited by Coenraads, who have met children with Rett and their parents, and are working on therapies, a cure or a reversal of the disease.
Rett syndrome is caused by a mutation of the gene on the X chromosome called MECP2 that causes numerous devastating symptoms that worsen over time. The symptoms begin in early childhood and leave Rett sufferers completely dependent on 24-hour-a-day care for the rest of their lives. While the function of MECP2 remains elusive, scientists know that it acts globally and impacts numerous systems in the body.
Female cells have two X chromosomes and therefore two copies of the MECP2 gene, and mutations occur in only one of the two copies of the gene. In females, however, one of the two X chromosomes is randomly turned off (or silenced), a phenomenon called X chromosome inactivation (XCI). As a result, in patients with Rett syndrome, half of the cells express a normal copy of MECP2 and the other half express the mutant copy. Importantly, in those cells that express the mutant MECP2, the normal copy is still present—just silent. Green is testing drugs that modulate XCI to reactivate the silent normal MECP2 gene in these cells as a strategy to reverse the disease.
“He is taking a somewhat unconventional approach, as he is attempting to reactivate the entire X chromosome and not just MECP2,” said Coenraads. “His work first came to RSRT’s attention in 2009. We learned that he was conducting a screen to identify genes that control XCI. As his work matured over the next few years he did indeed identify factors that control XCI, some of which belong to molecular pathways for which there are drugs. These drugs can now be tested in culture and in vivo in Rett syndrome mouse models.”
Green praised the support he has received from RSRT and said the work that Coenraads and her colleagues do is inspirational.
“With NIH funding, you pretty much have to be doing mainstream research,” said Green, who was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences. “The NIH doesn’t fund bold and innovative projects often. By contrast, organizations like RSRT are willing to take on high-risk projects that have controversial hypotheses and rationales, because these are the ones that really may have a great impact on disease.”
RSRT, organized and supported by highly motivated families and supporters of children and adults with Rett syndrome in the United States and through global alliances, stimulates, organizes and funds research to defeat the disorder via three essential approaches: treatment, basic science and reversal.
“One of my prime responsibilities is to identify barriers to the development of therapeutics, troubleshoot and problem solve,” Coenraads said. “Making progress by leaps rather than small incremental steps requires forging bold and innovative ways of conducting research that will maximize resources, save time and deliver results.”
Back at home in Trumbull and with the help of her teacher, Chelsea tells a visitor she loves kittens, listening to music and hanging out with her brothers while watching TV. She’s just finished a physical therapy session and will spend the rest of the day working on academics with her teacher. Her mother will continue working the phones, taking calls from researchers and parents of newly diagnosed children with Rett as well as raising funds for RSRT.
“My ultimate goal,” she said, “is a cure for Rett syndrome.”
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Michael Green elected to National Academy of Sciences
