“Working together at a national level will help us rapidly develop new treatments for neuromuscular diseases and give all Canadian patients access to world-class care,” said network lead Dr. Hanns Lochmüller.Genetic sequencing technology has dramatically increased our ability to diagnose rare neuromuscular diseases, opening the door to earlier and better treatment. A new national network called NMD4C (NeuroMuscular Disease for Canada) hopes to capitalize on this success, bringing patients, scientists and clinicians together to improve care, research and treatment.
Ottawa researchers are playing a big role in the network, with Drs. Hanns Lochmüller, Jodi Warman Chardon and Rashmi Kothary leading the network through its Steering Committee. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Muscular Dystrophy Canada recently awarded $1.2 million for NMD4C to operate for three years.
The network will advance research and collaboration on Duchenne muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy and myotonic dystrophy, as well as many other rare genetic neuromuscular diseases, which collectively affect more than 64,000 Canadians. NMD4C will develop tools for better collaborative research, including a pan-Canadian biobanking infrastructure to allow researchers to find the samples they need. It will also ensure that new findings are rapidly translated into practice in clinics across Canada, including The Ottawa Hospital’s new NeuroMuscular Centre.
Learn more on the NMD4C website, or see the media release from Muscular Dystrophy Canada or the CIHR grant summary.
“Working together at a national level will help us rapidly develop new treatments for neuromuscular diseases and give all Canadian patients access to world-class care,” said network lead Dr. Lochmüller, a neurologist and senior scientist at CHEO Research Institute, associate scientist and neurologist at The Ottawa Hospital and professor at the University of Ottawa Brain and Mind Research Institute.
The Ottawa Hospital is a leading academic health, research and learning hospital proudly affiliated with the University of Ottawa.
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