RESEARCH

Our major research is currently ongoing at Children’s National Medical Center Research Institute in Washington, D.C. The Research Center for Genetic Medicine, of which the Microarray Center is a component, is directed by Eric Hoffman, Ph.D. The Center was established as an in-house scientific resource for asking complex biological questions. We are taking advantage of the formidable array resources brought together here.

Dr. Eric Hoffman serves as the Director of the Center and is a world-renowned expert on neuromuscular disease. He works closely with Dr. Diana Escolar, Erin’s physician, who also runs the Muscular Dystrophy clinic at Children’s. Dr. Khaled Bouri, a highly experienced post-doctoral fellow, volunteered to work full time on our research.

The Center is designed to use emerging genetic and biochemical methods to determine the molecular basis of disease, and to implement new findings directly to patient care employing molecular diagnostics and experimental therapeutics.

The nerve group within the Center for Genetic Medicine has been the fastest growing, with many complementary projects now ongoing. In many respects, The Erin Godla Research Fund has been responsible for leveraging a tremendous amount of new research, and the government grants have begun to come in as a result. The following is an overview of the many different projects, who is now funding them, the specific progress on the projects, and our short term future goals.

Projects and People

Neuromuscular junction (where the nerve hits the muscle) -
The Erin Godla Research Fund, Department of Defense
Normal structure/function: Javad Nazarian, PhD student (GWU)
Abnormalities in mouse ALS and Juvenile ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease):
Khaled Bouri, PhD (post-doctoral fellow)
Plasticity (what happens when the connection breaks & how it signals to hook up again):
Shayma Fawwaz, PhD student

Motor neuron and spinal cord damage -
National Institutes of Health, Army
Experimental damage (mild, moderate, severe in mice, rats)
Effects of damage at, above, and below site of injury:
Simone DiGiovanni, MD (post-doc), Andrea DeBiase (tech), GU
Effects of damage to regeneration of motor neurons:
Melissa Thouin (tech)

Effects of drugs on improvement of repair:
Linda Moses, GU
Brain injury and response to damage -
National Institutes of Health, March of Dimes
Experimental damage (mild, moderate, severe in mice):
Joanne Natale, MD Ph.D. and her laboratory of 5 people
National Core Facility for Microarrays -

For any scientist in the country holding a neurological or mental health grant (7,000)
National Institutes of Health
(Dietrich Stephan)