Overview

There is more to muscular dystrophy than Duchenne, the most severe and, unfortunately, most common form.

Muscular dystrophy describes a group of neuromuscular diseases with different causes and progressions. All muscular dystrophies lead to progressive weakness and degeneration of skeletal muscles, but they differ in age of onset, severity, and rate of progression. There is no cure.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy appears primarily in young boys,  progresses at a terribly rapid rate and is fatal. Other forms, including myotonic dystrophy and facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, occur in teens and adults as well as children, and progression is relatively slow. Greg Cox, Ph.D., focuses on identifying how degeneration of skeletal muscles actually occurs, in a variety of different model systems. Learning the fundamental processes of the disease and how it progresses has the potential to provide more effective therapies and better targets for clinical treatment.