Genetics

Where To Go for Support and Help

Here you will find a list of places to go for support and help.Read More

Poll Finds Most Are Ignorant of Gaucher

By Elisha Sauers

In a recent telephone survey, researchers presented the following set of symptoms to hundreds of hematologists and oncologists from around the world: A 42-year-old man has complaints of chronic fatigue and bone pain, while suffering from a low blood-platelet count and an enlarged liver and spleen.Read More

Dutch Team Investigates Cancer Risk

A team of researchers with the University of Amsterdam Academy Medical Center has rejected the notion that Jewish genetics are at the root of an increased risk of cancer among sufferers of Gaucher disease.Read More

Annual Guide to Jewish Genetic Diseases

The Forward presents this section to provide information on some of the more serious Jewish genetic diseases. There are about 20 “Ashkenazic diseases,” not counting the higher rates of at least four cancer-related genes. The diseases are more prevalent in the Eastern European Jewish population because of centuries of endogamy — literally, “marrying within.”Read More

Gene Found for Dystonia-related Disorder

By Mordechai Shinefield

Scientists have unlocked the gene responsible for a rare and debilitating genetic disorder.Rapid-onset dystonia-parkinsonism, or RDP, is a rare genetic disorder whose sufferers share symptoms with both dystonia and Parkinson’s disease. In an article published in the July 21 issue of the neuroscience journal Neuron, a research team detailed itsRead More

Cord Blood Transplants Eyed As Therapy for Some Diseases

By E.B. Solomont

In a medical development with potentially far-reaching effects, researchers have transplanted cord blood into newborns with a rare genetic disease, preserving their brain development and performing a life-saving treatment for babies with a fatal genetic disorder.Scientists from Duke University Medical Center and the University of North Carolina atRead More

Scientists Seek New Crohn’s Treatments

By Mordechai Shinefield

Researchers are exploring two possible new treatments — one in trials, the other still speculative — for Crohn’s disease, a genetically linked digestive-tract disorder suffered by an estimated 500,000 Americans, mostly Jews of Ashkenazic descent.Discovered by Dr. Burrill Crohn in 1932, Crohn’s, which is similar toRead More

Supplements Holding Hope As Treatment For Canavan

By E.B. Solomont

New research indicates that acetate supplements may be an effective therapy for Canavan disease, a degenerative and ultimately fatal disorder of the brain and central nervous system.Currently, there is no cure for Canavan disease, a recessive genetic disorder that is carried by one in 40 Ashkenazic Jews. Canavan patients have a mutation of theRead More

‘Neverland’ Producer Searches for a Cure to Son’s Bloom’s Syndrome

By Ariella Cohen

In the press notes to the 2004 movie “Finding Neverland,” director Mark Forster ruminates on the “deep human need for illusions and dreams” and “belief in the face of tragedy.”Producer Richard Gladstein does not offer anything quite so sentimental when I ask him, about one year after the film’s blockbuster success, to muse on itsRead More

Where To Go for Support and Help

CANAVAN FOUNDATION450 West End Avenue, #10C New York, NY 10024 (212) 873-4640 (877) 4-CANAVAN Fax: 212-873-7892 www.canavanfoundation.org info@canavanfoundation.orgThis volunteer nonprofit foundation’s goals are to support research and to educate the medical community and at-risk populations.FANCONI ANEMIA RESEARCH FUND1801Read More