Dr. Charles Abrams and the University of Illinois at Chicago

Dr. Charles Abrams, a Professor in the Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will study if a commercially available drug can improve symptoms in mouse models of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1X-which is the second most common form of CMT. If successful, these studies will provide a strong basis for working to quickly advance this already commercially available drug as a potential clinical treatment for CMT1X patients.

Previous work done by Dr. Abrams demonstrated that nerves of a mouse model of CMT1X have reduced levels of adenosine, a naturally occurring molecule with anti-inflammatory properties, which provides a potential explanation for the nerve inflammation observed in CMT1X. Dr. Abrams and his team will perform a series of experiments to test whether a commercially available immunosuppressive drug can reduce the severity of the neuropathy in two mouse models of CMT1X by increasing the levels of adenosine and reducing nerve inflammation.