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The Muscular Dystrophy Community Assistance Research and Education Amendments of 2001 specified provisions for expanding and intensifying research on muscular dystrophy and mandated that the National Institutes of Health establish Centers of Excellence for research on muscular dystropy. Congress designated the centers as the Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Centers (MDCRCs) in the appropriations for FY 2004. Former Minnesota Senator, Paul D. Wellstone, who died on October 25, 2002, was a driving force behind the Muscular Dystrophy Community Assistance Research and Education Act.
As a nationally recognized Center of Excellence in muscular dystrophy, the Wellstone MDCRCs are expected to promote communication and collaboration, develop and share resources, and contribute to the training of new muscular dystrophy researchers. Each Wellstone MDCRC includes at least one basic research project and one clinical research project, with a minimum of three individual but interrelated research projects, an administrative core and at least one scientific resource core that serves as a resource for the national muscular dystrophy research effort.
Collectively, the Wellstone MDCRCs are engaged in research on various forms of muscular dystrophy. Designed to accelerate progress toward effective treatments for muscular dystrophies through increased synergistic collaboration and coordination of research activities, they promote side-by-side basic, translational, and clinical research. Each center coordinates efforts to help bring together investigators at multiple sites.
Muscular dystrophies are a diverse group of inherited disorders characterized by progressive muscle weakness and wasting. This Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center is exploring therapeutic strategies for the treatment of various muscular dystrophies by enabling translational research on muscular dystrophies and providing advanced diagnostic services.
The MDCRC is composed of two research projects, three cores and investigators with a proven track record of excellence and collaboration. The Center researchers’ studies and facilities explore basic biological mechanisms that relate to possible treatments for muscular dystrophies, facilitate translational research on muscular dystrophies, and provide advanced diagnostic services to patients and clinical trial participants. The Director and Co-director, Kevin Campbell and Steven Moore, are investigators with established records in basic, translational, and clinical research on muscular dystrophy.
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