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News — Rochester, Minn. (Jan. 15, 2025) - The American Neuromuscular Foundation (ANF), is excited to announce the 2024 ANF Mid-Career/Established Investigator Grant Award winners. Brett Morrison, MD, PhD, has been selected as one of award recipients for her research project, “Role of Macrophage MCT1 in Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy,” and Liubov Gushchina, PhD, has been selected for his research project titled, “Advancing Care With Exon 17 Skipping Therapy for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.”

Dr. Morrison’s team will study whether treatments directed to macrophages can be developed to treat peripheral neuropathies. He says that his team has already learned that altering the metabolic transporter, MCT1, in macrophages impacts the speed of recovery following peripheral nerve injury. Their goal is to determine whether macrophage MCT1 plays a role in diabetic peripheral neuropathy and whether lipid nanoparticles can target this molecule and either prevent neuropathy from occurring or accelerate its recovery. 

Dr. Gushchina’s project aims to develop and test the adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated therapy designed to exclude exon 17 from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) transcript to restore the open-reading frame that will result in dystrophin protein restoration. “This very promising approach can be applied to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy patients carrying skip-amendable mutations (duplications and deletions) and flank exon 17,” says Dr. Gushchina, whose study aims to create the second generation of AAV vectors with improved efficiency and safety profiles in human cells in vitro and in mouse skeletal muscles in vivo.

Following completion of the research, Drs. Morrison and Gushchina will each present their findings at an AANEM Annual Meeting.

About American Neuromuscular Foundation (ANF)

Based in Rochester, MN, ANF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the global effort to cure neuromuscular disease. As part of its mission to promote the advancement of scientific research and education, the ANF offers annual development grants and abstract and fellowship awards to launch research into muscle and nerve disorders by experts in the field. For more information about ANF, visit .

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