Research Progress

Three innovative ataxia research studies began October 1, 2002 at the University of Minnesota with monies raised and distributed through the Bob Allison Ataxia Research Center (BAARC).

The BAARC advisory board recently approved the distribution of $188,444 for the three studies. Dr. Gang Chen, assistant professor in the department of neuroscience and Dr. Michael D. Kaytor, assistant professor in the department of laboratory and pathology are both exploring disease mechanisms for two different types of hereditary ataxia in hopes of finding viable treatment options to prevent or slow the progression of ataxia. Dr. Walter Low is testing the feasibility of using stem cells from adult bone marrow to transplant healthy cells into the cerebellum.

In the past 12 years the Bob Allison Ataxia Research Center allocated a
total of $438,000 in start-up monies to help University of Minnesota
researchers in their exploratory studies of ataxia.

Initial seed money of $250,000 was leveraged to secure basic science projects and clinical research grants of more than $5.2 million from the National Institutes of Health. During the1990s researchers at the University of Minnesota made significant progress in identifying genes associated with the hereditary ataxias.

Today at the University of Minnesota we know much more about specific forms of hereditary ataxia. We know that abnormal proteins in the nerve cells interfere with the cerebellum's job to coordinate voluntary movement, but we are still hard at work trying to find potential treatments and an eventual cure.Researchers have already cloned several genes associated with ataxia. Cloning the genes has allowed them to develop a model which provides an experimental system to study the disease.