Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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Jonathan Glass

Setting the goalposts for ALS clinical trials

In the fight against a relentless neurodegenerative disease such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a critical question for research is: what is the definition of success?

Emory neurologists, with advice from other experts, have created a new disability rating scale for ALS. This is a set of questions patients or their caregivers answer to gauge how much ALS is eroding someone’s ability to manage daily life. The researchers think it can become a resource for testing new treatments for ALS in clinical trials.

The research used to develop the new rating scale was published on December 30 in JAMA Neurology. The rating scale itself will be available on the Emory ALS Center web site.

ALS’s attack on motor neurons makes it progressively more difficult to accomplish tasks such as household chores, daily hygiene, and eventually speaking and eating. Some patients live a year or two after diagnosis, some live ten.

Christina Fournier, MD

“If our goal in clinical trials is to have that decline happen more slowly, how we measure it matters,” says lead author Christina Fournier, MD, assistant professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine and co-director of Emory’s ALS Center.

Update: see Fournier’s comments to Medscape/Reuters Health here.

The current standard outcome measure is the ALSFRS-R (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale-Revised). While widely accepted in the field, the ALSFRS-R has some uneven aspects, or nonlinear weighting, which become problems when it is used to determine drug approval.

One example: a patient’s score will decline 3 points if they change from climbing stairs normally to holding a handrail, and will decline the same amount if they change from normal dressing and hygiene to being unable to dress or perform hygiene tasks without assistance. So 3 points can represent small or large changes in their lives. Also, the ALSFRS-R can change depending on symptom management, rather than underlying biology.

To put this in perspective, the most recent drug to be approved by the FDA (edaravone) displayed an effect size of 2.5 points – and the same drug faced resistance from European regulators. According to the Wall Street Journal, about 20 drugs are in clinical testing for ALS and 5 are in the late stages of development. Read more

Posted on January 2, 2020 by Quinn Eastman in Neuro Leave a comment