Some rare skin diseases not only reduce the quality of life of patients, but also can be devastating conditions, leading to amputations or death. At the 31st annual congress of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT), held last week in Rome, different laboratories showcased their approaches to editing mutations related to this group of diseases.
Variants in several subunits of the Mediator protein complex are responsible for MEDopathies, which present variable clinical manifestations and modes of inheritance. Researchers from Université de Paris Cité have investigated the role of MED16, a subunit of the evolutionary-conserved Mediator complex, in MEDopathies.
By adapting computational methods for dealing with large volumes of data, and slimming down that data, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered previously unknown genetic associations with 19 rare diseases, and validated three of those associations.