Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

CureDuchenne, UC Irvine, RUCDR Partner on Muscular Dystrophy Biobank

NEW YORK – CureDuchenne has partnered with the University of California, Irvine, and RUCDR Infinite Biologics on a biobanking project.

CureDuchenne said in a statement it would begin collecting blood and skin samples from volunteer patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy at its events around the US. When possible, it will also collect samples from "unaffected immediate blood relatives" including parents, siblings, and adult children.

Financial and other details were not disclosed.

"Having access to patient cells is the first step in pursuing precision medicine initiatives that will enable us to facilitate families getting involved and engaged in research, and ensure all stakeholders are able to conduct research for all individuals living with Duchenne," said Romina Foster-Bonds, director of programs at CureDuchenne and lead for the CureDuchenne Biobank.

CureDuchenne is a not-for-profit organization that advocates for people affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy, an X chromosome-linked recessive disorder caused by a mutation of the dystrophin gene. In 2017 the organization gave $5 million in seed financing to Exonics Therapeutics.

RUCDR is a biospecimen repository and services provider based in Piscataway, New Jersey. It was formed in 1998 as the Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository.

The CureDuchenne Biobank board will include experts in biorepositories and registries, technology transfer, genetics, neuromuscular disease, immunology, and ethical, legal and social issues. UCI School of Medicine professors Tahseen Mozaffar and Armando Villalta will lead the board along with CureDuchenne executives.

CureDuchenne said the board will determine access to the biobank's samples and deidentified data and samples.

"To help ensure that Duchenne patients from all population groups can potentially benefit from the research, Duchenne patients from diverse age ranges, ambulatory status, genetic mutations, and racial, cultural and socioeconomic groups are strongly encouraged to participate in this initiative," CureDuchenne said in a statement.

The Scan

Genetic Ancestry of South America's Indigenous Mapuche Traced

Researchers in Current Biology analyzed genome-wide data from more than five dozen Mapuche individuals to better understand their genetic history.

Study Finds Variants Linked to Diverticular Disease, Presents Polygenic Score

A new study in Cell Genomics reports on more than 150 genetic variants associated with risk of diverticular disease.

Mild, Severe Psoriasis Marked by Different Molecular Features, Spatial Transcriptomic Analysis Finds

A spatial transcriptomics paper in Science Immunology finds differences in cell and signaling pathway activity between mild and severe psoriasis.

ChatGPT Does As Well As Humans Answering Genetics Questions, Study Finds

Researchers in the European Journal of Human Genetics had ChatGPT answer genetics-related questions, finding it was about 68 percent accurate, but sometimes gave different answers to the same question.