University of Iowa researchers will study the most prevalent type of muscular dystrophy, thanks to a one-year, $39,998 grant from the FSH Society, Inc. The organization focuses on raising awareness and advancing research on facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), which affects about one in 14,286 individuals worldwide and currently has no treatment or cure.

A team led by Yi Xing, Ph.D., UI assistant professor of internal medicine, biomedical engineering and biostatistics, will use advanced technologies to identify RNA splicing differences among healthy people and people with FSHD or its infantile form. RNA splicing differences affect how genetic code is assembled and translated, and can result in defective messenger RNAs or proteins.

Collaborators are Katherine Mathews, M.D., UI professor of pediatrics and neurology, and investigators at the NIH-Funded Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center cell core led by Steven Moore, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology.