On May 11th, CureDRPLA hosted the first-ever conference on Dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy (DRPLA) research, in Boston (USA). Ataxia UK has a collaborative relationship with CureDRPLA and we are working together to advance DRPLA research. Drs. Silvia Prades and Julie Greenfield from our Research Department attended this conference.
We had a wide range of attendees with different backgrounds and interests – 24 joined in-person and 7 virtually:
- Scientists and medical professionals – Western Washington University (USA), New York University (USA), Boston Children’s Hospital (USA), Brigham and Women’s Hospital (USA), University of Massachusetts (USA), Tokyo Medical and Dental University (Japan), University of Glasgow (UK), University College London (UK), King’s College London (UK).
- Biotech – Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. , Triplet Therapeutics, Inc. , Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Charles River Laboratories International, Inc.
The main goal of CureDRPLA is to advance DRPLA research and work towards a treatment for this condition, and this is what the conference was about! There were a few presentations showcasing the research that has taken place since we started this collaboration in 2019. All presentations were followed by Q&A to allow the attendees to discuss the research being presented and brainstorm ideas for projects that we could take on.
There were many outcomes from this meeting:
- It created a strong sense of community and it motivated them.
- We shared knowledge across all the CureDRPLA-funded projects, which is very important to ensure that everyone is up to date with the latest developments.
- We explored therapeutic options for DRPLA, including those that we are currently working on and others that we should be exploring further.
- We engaged with biotech companies to raise awareness of DRPLA in hopes of pursuing them to explore treatment opportunities as well.
We are so pleased with the first conference that CureDRPLA is planning to make it a recurrent one on a yearly basis.
If you have any questions about this conference contact Silvia Prades, DRPLA Research Manager, at spradesabadias@ataxia.org.uk
