The newspaper “El Mundo” devotes an extensive report to Friedreich's Ataxia through the testimony of Marta, a 13-year-old girl, who began to show the first symptoms of this rare disease when she was only five years old.
The report highlights the research performed by IRB Barcelona aimed to develop an injectable frataxin treatment that can reach the brain. Frataxin is the protein that is reduced in those affected by this disease.
Meritxell Teixidó, the researcher behind the project, which also involves Macarena Sánchez and Ernest Giralt, stresses: "I believe that in 10 or 15years there will be a therapy that turns Friedreich's Ataxia into a chronic disease." And she adds, “the dream would be to stop it completely or, at least, to slow down its progress.”
Link to El Mundo
Kennedy’s disease is an untreatable neuromuscular disorder considered a rare disease
A study led by Xavier Salvatella may pave the way for new lines of treatment for Kennedy’s disease
It is estimated that one in four people will require brain treatment at some point. While there are drug candidates for most diseases of the brain, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) poses an impassable obstacle for most of these compounds and a bottleneck for the delivery of drugs that could cure these patients.
RNE's "Inquietamente" programme has interviewed Meritxell Teixidó, IRB Barcelona research associate, about the study based on scorpion venom. "We saw that there was a peptide in the scorpion venom, chlorotoxin, which has the ability to reach the central nervous system and then act as toxin, "said Teixidó.
Link to RNE
