February 23rd and 24th: South American Art Weekend For Our Kids at Children's in Washington DC!

A few posts back, I wrote about Paola Canelos and Tina Duong from our Clinical Trials Center here in GenMed and their trip to Ecuador to establish proper medical care for children with muscular dystrophy. Paola and Tina used their vacation time and paid their own way to Ecuador where they trained physical therapists and looked for a possible location for a muscular dystrophy clinic there.

Now they want to bring a dedicated neurologist and physical therapist here from Ecuador for training and help them establish a muscular dystrophy clinic back at home.

What better way than through the arts?

FEBRUARY 23rd AND 24th: A WEEKEND OF THE ARTS

Tina and Paola invite all kids with muscular dystrophy (Free, of course!) to Children's National Medical Center for "A weekend in South America" February 23rd and 24th. Our kids will get a first hand experience of the South American culture through painting, theatre and music. The children will paint pictures with South American motifs.

ART OPENING

An art opening will be held Sunday evening, where you will have the opportunity to speak to the children who created the beautiful works of art for the event.

THEATRICAL PRESENTATION

Immediately following the opening will be the piece de resistance, a theatrical presentation of "Diatribia de amor contra un hombre sentado (Love's Diatribe Against a Sensible Man)". This is the only theatrical piece written by the world renowned Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is a monologue delivered in Spanish to better capture the passion that is Latin America. The play is embellished by the music of Astor Piazzolla and performed by Maria Canelos and Matias Zilly.

PLEASE JOIN US

Please join us for a night of art and culture. We are asking for a $25 donation to this event. All the proceeds will go toward establishing a muscular dystrophy clinic in Ecuador. If you or someone you know are interested in participating and/or attending this event, please feel free to forward them this email and/or contact Paola Canelos (pcanelos@cnmcresearch.org) or Tina Duong (tduong@cnmresearch.org), for more information.

Goings-On

This week: Lots more work, Eric Hoffman is speaking at a conference in London and Ben Cumbo, one of our local community members, is in the spot light once more.

• Just a few of the lab happenings this week:
  
• CINRG, our clinical trials network has Team Meeting this week. Discussions will include new clinical trials in the pipeline and the Spring Meeting.
• Alan Watson is giving Lab Meeting.
  

• Eric is off to London Wednesday night for the Inaugural International Neuromuscular Conference at the Centre for Neuromuscular Disease (left) where he will give a talk on muscular dystrophy basic and translational science. Other speakers include Katie Bushby (also left) of TREAT-NMD fame and Francesco Muntoni, a prinicpal scientist in the UK morpholino clinical trials. In all, over 280 scientists will attend the conference.

• Finally, I am thrilled to share with you the honor bestowed on 20 year old Ben Cumbo, pictured here with his family. Ben is a sophomore at St. Mary's College here in Maryland and has duchenne muscular dystrophy. Ben was recently featured in Richard Cohen's new book, "Strong in Broken Places" and on January 9th appeared on the Today Show, along with Mr. Cohen and other people featured in the book.
  

GENMED NEWS

Happy January!

Washington winters keep teasing us. First the weather is cold then it's warm. Today was cold, cold, cold - brrr.

Today was busy after a three-day weekend. Besides the regular lab work, we have a lecture on Tuesday, Eric's in Mexico thru Wednesday (no, really - he's working!) and Joe Devaney (on the right) will update lab members on the progress of his work.

We have three announcements.

On March 8, 2008 there will be a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the all-important discovery of dystrophin. This event, sponsored by MDA and held at Children's National Medical Center, celebrates the discovery of the gene and protein product that is absent in boys with duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Also on March 8th the neuromuscular clinical trials network, CINRG, and the Scientific Advisory Committee for the DoD and Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Programs at Children's will hold their annual program updates. Of those meetings, parents may attend certain meetings that are public.

One more important announcement: I'm a grandmother! Momma Nicole and baby Emma (on the right) are home, along with Daddy Matt, and doing fine.