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Research Grant Award
We are very pleased to announce that after an industry-standard objective and scientific scoring process, the IDEA League Scientific Review Committee, composed of 11 noteworthy medical scientists from around the world, has determined that the 2010 Research Award will go to Dr. Jing-Qiong (Katty) Kang from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
This two-year $30,000 award was funded thanks to the generosity of numerous individuals and companies. Future research awards will be named in honor of a patient, family or company raising $30,000 for their specific award. To date, the Haley Smith Research Fund, Derek Rudawsky Research Fund, and Ryan Smith Research Fund have been established. One hundred percent of the money raised for these funds will go directly to research and will contribute to the better understanding and treatment of Dravet syndrome. For more information on how you can create your own research fund, please contact our executive director, Marilyn Baker.
Dr. Kang’s study, Toward understanding the GABRG2 truncation mutations associated with epilepsy and Dravet syndrome, seeks to understand 1) why the truncation mutations in GABAA receptor g2 subunit cause epilepsies and 2) why some mutations cause mild febrile seizures, while the others cause more severe epilepsy, like Dravet syndrome. The characterization of the altered signaling pathways of these misrouted and misfolded GABAA receptors which result from truncation mutations may help to 1) understand why Dravet syndrome is different than other mild epilepsies caused by the same gene mutations? 2) elucidate the “vaccine damage” in those children with Dravet syndrome who had an encephalopathy with refractory seizures and intellectual impairment after vaccination; 3) solve the long time enigma of the relationship between hippocampal atrophy and epilepsy (“which comes first, the chicken or the egg?”); 3) identify a potential novel therapy for treating Dravet syndrome.
Progress reports will be published in upcoming newsletters. Our sincere thanks to all donors who worked—and continue to work—so hard to raise money to support research to further our understanding of treating Dravet syndrome.
Marilyn Baker, Executive Director
IDEA League
443.607.8267