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HHS Secretary Alex Azar Touts White House Efforts to Cure Rare Diseases

Despite skyrocketing healthcare costs, President Trump is committed to protecting the 30 million or so Americans with rare diseases and ensuring timely, affordable access to lifesaving treatments, the nation’s highest-ranking health official said. “We have to think about how our financing system can protect those with serious and rare illnesses.

Case Report Describes First Case of CMTX5 in a Chinese Person

A novel mutation in the gene PRPS1 was identified in the first case of X-linked Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 5 (CMTX5) in China. The finding was described in a case report published in the journal Neuropathology, titled “A novel mutation in PRPS1 gene causes X‐linked Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth disease‐5.”…

Gene Therapy Strategy Treats Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 2D Mice, Study Shows

Researchers have successfully used adeno-associated virus-mediated gene therapy to treat mice that replicated a novel mutation found in a Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 2D patient with severe disease. The study describing the scientists’ work, “Allele-specific RNA interference prevents neuropathy in Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2D mouse models,” was published in the…