Hi Cure,

We’ve got several exciting updates this week, so we’ll get straight to it!

If you have updates you would like to be included in next week’s newsletter, please email us at info@cureangelman.org.

This week we are highlighting an exciting publication from Drs. Dave Segal, Jill Silverman and Kyle Fink at the University of California, Davis that reported behavioral rescue in an adult mouse model of Angelman syndrome following administration of a zinc-finger artificial transcription factor (ATF) to unsilence the paternal Ube3a expression. 

This is an exciting newly published study that supports our Pillar 2 approach focusing on a paternal reactivation strategy and further aligns with the idea that treatment at later developmental time points (in this case adult-treated mice) can show significant improvements in AS-related behavioral outcomes. 

Click here to read more:

The Tenth Angelman Syndrome Conference was recently held in Shanghai, China. Dr. Allyson Berent, Chief Science Officer, virtually presented the Roadmap to a Cure 2.0. Per Xue Zhang, the presentation was “very encouraging news for AS in China, and we admire all the work you do as AS mother and FAST leader.” A total of about 100 AS families traveled to Shanghai for this conference, and nearly 200,000 views have been received online. 

“We are very touched that all of you are concerned about us and we hope to carry out natural history research with the help of Professor Wang Yi from Children's Hospital of Fudan University to start our roadmap to cure for our children.” - Xue Zhang, AS Community Member

Congratulations to Rhian Adams, mother of Samson who lives with Angelman syndrome and FAST athlete, who recently won runner-up Personal Trainer of the Year at the Dubai Fitness Awards! This is one of many accolades won by this incredible woman over her career in the health and fitness industry.

Rhian is humble and inspiring, receiving her award with such grace: “This small town girl from the Welsh Valleys could only have dreamt this — of being on stage, year after year and walking up there to applause, in glamorous gowns and receiving trophies. It still feels like a dream but one that I am living and I just wanted to say to anybody reading this — DREAM BIG! REACH FOR THE STARS! With a little bit of hard work, determination and faith, NOTHING is impossible!”

Incoming COO Ryan Fischer sat down for his first meet-and-greet with the community on Sunday, and folks dived right in with their questions. (For those who couldn’t make it, don’t worry – Ryan starts April 1 :) 

Read the summary here:

Thanks for reading, Cure!

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