| Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins |
August 26, 2010 – Philadelphia Inquirer Researchers at University of Pennsylvania find possible genetic link to Lou Gehrig's diseaseUncovering a rare clue to a baffling disease, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a genetic stutter that may influence the risk of developing ALS. The finding, announced in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, was welcome news to researchers around the world racing to understand and treat this paralyzing disease, which is usually fatal and is best known as having killed baseball star Lou Gehrig at 37 and confined physicist and writer Stephen Hawking to a wheelchair. Though others have linked specific genes to rare inherited forms of the disease, this finding is the first to show a strong genetic link to the more common "sporadic" forms of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). "We thought this was really interesting and neat," said Johns Hopkins neurologist Jeffrey Rothstein, who was not part of the team. Until now, "there have been no validated risk-factor genes in ALS." | Events
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