Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation

The Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation is pleased to announce the 2010 - 2011 winner of the $100,000 "Fund-A-Fellow" postdoctoral fellowship grant. The award goes to Dr. Cameron Hilton, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oregon, working with principle investigators, Dr. Andrew Berglund and Dr. Michael Haley. Dr. Hilton's research, "Small Molecule Therapeutics Based on Pentamidine for the Treatment of Myotonic Dystrophy", aims to modify the existing drug, pentamidine to use as a safe treatment to eliminate the symptoms of myotonic dystrophy.

Today, pentamidine carries approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating a severe type of pneumonia in people with weakened immune systems, as well as leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness and some yeast infections. Researchers have discovered that levels used successfully in experiments in mice would be toxic in humans so modifications must be made to this compound. Dr. Hilton's work is focused on finding better pentamidine analogs that are promising as a therapeutic compound for myotonic dystrophy.

The MDF expects the funded research to complement the existing efforts of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) and other governmental and philanthropic agencies.