UAMS News Bureau Office of Communications & Marketing 4301 West Markham # 890 Little Rock, AR 72205-7199 uamshealth.com/news News Release Feb. 14, 2017 Media Contacts: Leslie W. Taylor, 501-686-8998 Wireless phone: 501-951-7260
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[email protected] UAMS Scientists Create Promising Mouse Model for Reaching Cure for ALS LITTLE ROCK — Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) have found a new way to replicate Lou Gehrig’s disease in mice, in what they hope will bring scientists one big step closer to a cure. Mahmoud Kiaei, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the UAMS College of Medicine, published the project recently in Human Molecular Genetics, a peer-reviewed journal published by The Oxford University Press on all topics related to human molecular genetics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28040732 Lou Gehrig’s disease, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), attacks the nerve cells that control muscles, called motor neurons. Patients become progressively weaker, eventually losing the ability to speak, eat, move and breathe. There is no cure and the disease is 100 percent fatal. Death sometimes occurs as fast as six months to a year after diagnosis. “Advances like this give me lots of hope and optimism that we will be able to discover a drug to treat ALS sooner,” Kiaei said. About 10 percent of ALS cases in the United States are inherited. In the mid-‘90s, after the identification of one gene associated with ALS, scientists first replicated human ALS in mice, creating a so-called “mouse model.” For many years, it remained the only mouse model available for ALS testing, but it failed to yield a drug treatment that was replicable in human clinical trials.