New potential drugs for muscle dystrophy found using stem cells

Muscular dystrophy describes a group of genetic diseases in which muscles progressively weaken and degenerate, with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) being the most common. There are no curative treatments for DMD, and available drugs for the most part delay the progression to extend the patient's quality of life. A new study seen in Biomedicines by CiRA Assistant Professor Tomoya Uchimura and Associate Professor Hidetoshi Sakurai, both of whom join T-CiRA in collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Takeda), uses iPS cells to show that drugs acting on store-operated calcium channels can extend the contractile function of muscles. The results reveal these channels are a new drug target for DMD treatments.

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