As many of you know there is substantial research now underway for drug therapies for Myotonic Dystrophy. Drug companies are interested as it is the largest population of adult form of muscular dystrophy and it is likely that patients will need to take drugs periodically to insure the condition does not come back.
The most promising of these therapies is Antisense? What is AntiSense you wonder?
Antisense oligonucleotides – short segments of genetic material designed to target specific areas of a gene or chromosome – that activated an enzyme to “chew up” toxic RNA (ribonucleic acid) could point the way to a treatment for a degenerative muscle disease called myotonic dystrophy, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., in a report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.