Despite the questionable weather in Washington D.C. the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council (NANDSC) is still scheduled to meet February 15-16, 2007.

The NANDSC holds three regular meetings each year (February, May, and September) and each lasts about a day and a half. Each meeting has a portion open to the public, with the reminder of the meeting closed to the public as the council reviews grant applications. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) cannot award a research grant unless the application has received the approval of the NANDSC. In addition to reviewing applications, one of the NANDSC’s main roles is “to advise the Institute on policy and procedures affecting the extramural research programs.” The SMA Project was established by NINDS to help advance spinal muscular atrophy research.

Click here to read the meeting’s agenda.

Recently, a number of journal articles about Spinal Muscular Atrophy have been published. Below are links to the abstracts of a few of these articles, including some from researchers who have been funded by FightSMA. A subscription to the publishing journal is required to read the full text of the articles, but the abstracts will help you decide if you are interested in reading more.

Recent Advances in Respiratory Care for Neuromuscular Disease
by Anita K. Simonds
Chest. 2006; 130:1879-1886.
Click here to read the abstract

Axonal-SMN (a-SMN), a protein isoform of the survival motor neuron gene, is specifically involved in axonogenesis.
by Veronica Setola, Mineko Terao, Denise Locatelli, Stefania Bassanini, Enrico Garattini, and Giorgio Battaglia
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2007; 104:1959-1964.
Click here to read the abstract

Preclinical validation of a multiplex real-time assay to quantify SMN mRNA in patients with SMA.
by L. R. Simard, M-C Bélanger, S. Morissette, M. Wride, T. W. Prior, and K. J. Swoboda
Neurology. 2007; 68:451-456.
Click here to read the abstract