Nationwide Children’s gets $7M muscular dystrophy therapy grant

Nationwide Children’s Hospital has been awarded a $7 million federal grant for muscular dystrophy research.

The award will fund research of muscular dystrophy therapies that have shown promise in animals, including replacing defective genes responsible for muscular dystrophy with healthy ones, according to a statement from the Columbus, Ohio hospital.

Muscular dystrophy describes a group of disorders that involve muscle weakness and loss of muscle tissue that get worse over time. There are no known cures for the various muscular dystrophies — the goal of treatment is to control symptoms.

The National Institutes of Health grant designates the hospital as a Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center, one of three national award recipients in 2010. The centers are named for deceased Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Democrat from Minnesota, and serve as focal points for research collaborations and provide training and guidance for researchers, according to the statement.

Dr. John Barnard, president of The Research Institute at the hospital, called the grant and designation “a prestigious national validation of the groundbreaking muscular dystrophy research being performed by our neurosciences group.”

In 2012, Nationwide Children’s is expected to complete an expansion plan started in 2005 that will make it the second-largest pediatric hospital in the nation.