Culturing Hope

The researchers recently provided evidence for one method that might be used to reverse Friedreich's ataxia.

In the October 2006 issue of Nature Chemical Biology, the Scripps Research investigators published work on histone deacetylase inhibitors that, in test cells, reactivated the frataxin gene and boosted frataxin protein production to therapeutic levels. Those compounds are currently being tested in animal models.

These images show lymphoid cells from a patient with Friedreich's ataxia. (Click for details.)