Thanks to funding from the ALS Association’s Ice Bucket Challenge, the discovery of a new gene linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may lead to treatments for the neurodegenerative disease, according to media interviews with UMass Medical School scientist John Landers, PhD, who co-led a team of scientists credited with the discovery.
“It opens the door to developing new models for the disease,” Dr. Landers, professor of neurology, told the Telegram & Gazette.
An international team of researchers led by Landers and Bryan Traynor, MD, PhD, at the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health, identified KIF5A as a new gene associated with the development of ALS. The discovery, published in the journal Neuron, advances the understanding of what causes ALS and further implicates the role of cytoskeletal defects in the axon as a common factor in the disease. It points to the cytoskeleton as a potential target for new drug development.
“As we find more genes, we can start to dissect out what’s going wrong in ALS patients,” Landers told the Boston Herald. “That will help determine how we can develop drug therapies.”
Learn more in the media coverage, below.
Telegram & Gazette: UMass researchers in Worcester on team that found ALS gene mutation
Associated Press: New ALS gene step in finding cause of disease
Boston Herald: Kalter: Study gets docs one step closer to dousing ALS
NECN: Researchers at UMass Medical School Discover Gene Linked to Development of ALS
Worcester Business Journal: Ice Bucket Challenge funds another UMass ALS breakthrough
WBZ/TV 4 CBS Boston: Researchers Identify New Gene Connected To ALS
U.S. News: New ALS Gene Step in Finding Cause of Disease
WCVB/TV Boston: Discovery of ALS gene a step in finding cause of disease
Related story on UMassMedNow:
Discovery of new ALS gene points to common role of cytoskeleton in disease
