ST. LOUIS, July 21 MO-National-Fragile-X
ST. LOUIS, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Breakthrough research findings
describing potentially significant new treatments for fragile X syndrome (FXS)
will be presented to nearly 1,000 family members and professionals at the 11th
International Fragile X Conference in St. Louis July 23-27. More than 200
speakers will describe the latest treatments for symptoms related to the
mutation of the Fragile X gene and powerful new medications being researched.
Multiple early trials are under way of drugs that show great promise for
improving the cognitive, anxiety and behavioral problems associated with FXS.
"Many new treatments target correcting the mechanisms that cause FXS, in
contrast to supportive treatments that address various symptoms that dominated
past research efforts," wrote Elizabeth Berry-Kravis, M.D., Ph.D., in the
National Fragile X Foundation Quarterly
(http://www.fragilex.org/html/journals.htm) journal.
Recently featured in Time
(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1818268,00.html) magazine,
Fragile X research is being carried out in all corners of the globe. In the
United States, Congress recently appropriated nearly $2 million for continued
funding of FXS-related public health activities via the Centers for Disease
Control in Atlanta. The National Institutes of Health will fund nearly $25
million in FXS research this year.
The biennial international conference is preceded on July 22 by National
Fragile X Awareness Day, proclaimed by Congress in 2000. FXS, the world's
leading known cause of inherited intellectual disability (formerly referred to
as mental retardation), is also the most common known genetic cause of autism.
Scientists are studying FXS as a possible model for better understanding the
role that genes play in autism. FXS today affects more than 100,000 Americans.
Another one million are carriers of the Fragile X mutation and at risk of
passing it on to their children and developing the newly discovered conditions
of fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS), a Parkinson's-like
condition causing tremor, balance and memory problems in adults, and fragile
X-associated primary ovarian insufficiency (FXPOI), a condition that can
result in premature menopause for women as early as their late teens.
For more information, visit the National Fragile X Foundation web site at
FragileX.org (http://www.fragilex.org/html/home.shtml).
SOURCE National Fragile X Foundation
