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Guest blogger, Beth Johnsson, with her daughter Hannah.
by Beth Johnsson
Someone once told me that hope is what distinguishes humans from every other species; our ability to look to a potential future rather than live solely in the here and now. This is, of course, wildly inaccurate; I am not a biologist or anthropologist (or any other ‘ist’ for that matter), but I believe there are a number of other factors which separate humans from the species around us (not least, an opposable digit!). But the concept has stuck with me and, since most of my life is built around hope, it cannot help but strike a chord.
Three weeks ago, Hannah had four medical appointments in five days and a multitude of other issues which needed addressing. Hope permeated them all. I hoped, for example, that we would manage to get a disabled parking space at the hospital; I hoped that the wait wouldn’t be so long that we lost Hannah’s good will before we even got in the room; I hoped that the ECG results would show that the recent episodes we have observed are not seizures; I hoped that the locum SLT (who barely knows Hannah) would recognize that eye gaze is her best possible chance at communication and would therefore support our application for the technology; I hoped that the engineer would say he could adapt Hannah’s trike to make it big enough for a child who should be riding a bike; I hoped that the physio would approve a height adjustable bed to prevent our inevitable back injuries; I hoped the eye unit would finally discharge us because, (take note SLT!), her eyes do work; I hoped the blood tests results would require no more than three adults to hold Hannah down; most of all I hoped we would make it through each appointment without a total meltdown (Hannah’s, not mine!)
Sorry, that’s wrong, that is not what I hoped most of all. Most of all, I hoped, with every second of every appointment and of every minute in between, that one day none of this will be needed. I hoped that one day the ‘professionals’ involved in my little girl’s life will be her teachers, her GP and her dentist. And that’s all.
Two weeks ago, the routine medical appointments were replaced by an unexpected admission to hospital. Her first. (What a strange world we now live in, where I know that making it through six years without a hospital admission makes us incredibly lucky). An infection, the source of which remains unknown, has made my cheeky and (hitherto) still mobile little girl, lethargic, disengaged, and unwilling to walk. Most worryingly, it has put out the sparkle in her eyes. Now the professionals involved reach an all-time high, as does my reliance on hope. I watch her suddenly unable to take a step on her own, trembling violently, and I cling fiercely, with muscles I didn’t even know I have, to the hope that this is not the beginning of regression, the start of a life time spent in hospital, but ‘just’ the temporary result of an infection. Something they do have a cure for.
When Hannah was first diagnosed I didn’t know enough (and didn’t allow myself to know enough) about Rett Syndrome to understand that a cure was the only hope. Then, once I started to learn more, I didn’t allow myself to believe that a cure in her lifetime was possible. It seemed too fantastical, too far out of reach, to think it could really happen in time for my little girl. Now, as I continue to learn more about what Rett really means for Hannah, and about the research going on today, I realise that a cure is not only possible, it is the ONLY possible future. I cannot allow myself to think about the possibilities of the alternatives.
Nor can I help but be frustrated and confused by those who don’t seem to share or, at the very least, support that hope. Why do ‘friends’ click ‘like’ on every trivial Facebook message out there, but ignore my posts about Rett? Why can they not take the time to vote when funding is at stake? Why can they not spare the cost of a skinny latte to help make the hope reality? Why do they so often seem to think that I should just accept how things are? Would they? I hope not! It seems to me that to accept is to admit defeat; to hope is to fight. If my hope was false, my fight for an impossible prize, I could understand why acceptance might be healthier, more practical, but it is not false. The prayer I offer every night is not one born of blind faith, for a miraculous thunderbolt from an omniscient being; it is one born of proven fact, for a miraculous breakthrough by a handful of knowledgeable scientists, supported by a group of dedicated parents, in whom my faith lies and on whom my hope depends.
Perhaps others think I should accept because they wonder about the merits of a life based on hope, on a dream for the future. Carpe diem and all that? To be honest, sometimes I have wondered too. Shouldn’t we be living for today, enjoying what is here and now rather than always looking to a future which, ultimately, we cannot guarantee will arrive in time? But the two are not mutually exclusive, surely? In fact, I would say they are co-dependent. Living in hope for the future makes today more positive too: it enables you to notice the tiny, almost imperceptible steps being made forwards, the achievements which others might miss, but which you know are all part of the journey. Why should hoping for a brighter tomorrow preclude you from seeing the light in today? I don’t think it does; the light which research has switched on for Hannah’s future shines in her today too. It illuminates all the other reasons to be hopeful and grateful. When you are in darkness, finding the light switch is hard, so the darkness continues, self-perpetuates, the exit remains elusive. But when you have a little light shining already, no matter how small, finding your way towards the brighter, bigger light in the distance becomes an easier journey.
Before we discovered Rett Syndrome Research Trust and the research they fund, the sense of helplessness was overwhelming. For a control freak, like me, it was impossible. Uncertainty about the future is bad enough, but feeling there is nothing you can do to change it is torture. Even fundraising didn’t feel truly hopeful, when ultimately we knew money was going towards coping with diagnosis, not in making that diagnosis a demon of the past. When I look back on that time, I remember a very dark place, not simply because of the diagnosis itself, but also because of our lack of vision of the future or of how we could influence it. Hopelessness for the future meant helplessness today. The relief that comes from feeling that you are actually doing something, that you are taking action, raising money, helping to fund the science which is holding all your hopes in its hands, this relief is a light switch. Since we turned it on, both tomorrow and today have seemed a great deal brighter.
I started writing this, and thinking about hope, several weeks ago. Every time I think it’s done, something else comes along which is so tightly bound up with hope, some new experience or emotion which makes our hopes shift and metamorphose once more, that I have to start again. When I started writing, Hannah had never been in hospital overnight. She was walking confidently, progressing, even. She’d taken an independent step or two up the stairs. We were daring to hope she might continue. Now things have changed and with them, our hopes. Today we are hoping that she returns to where she was three weeks ago, now just that would be a little miracle. I’m sure all parents’ hopes for their children change over time, evolving inevitably as the child grows and develops their own set of hopes and dreams. I expected that. I just never thought that one morning I would wake up hoping that my six year old will bear her own weight. Everything is relative – our daily, weekly, monthly hopes change, but the ultimate hope is a constant, one of the few things in my daughter’s life which will not be lost.
I started, all those weeks ago, by talking about what distinguishes humans from other species. Speech, surely has to be one of our greatest gifts. The very thing I hope for most for my daughter. I make a joke of the opposable digit, but the gift the thumb brings to us is the ability to grasp, to hold, to use our hands in ways which other animals cannot. Another fundamental skill my little girl has lost. It’s not that the loss of these things makes my daughter any less of a human being, but I cannot help but believe that it does make her a little less of Hannah: the little girl, teenager, woman she could be. I cannot know if Hannah has hope, whether she is aware enough of the things she cannot do to hope that one day she will, although the way she looks at her brothers playing and running and talking, it is hard to believe that she is not hoping to join them one day. If hope gives her the same sense of purpose and drive and determination as it brings the rest of us, then I hope that she does have hope, and that one of these days my stubborn, cheeky, sparkling little girl will tell me that her name is Hannah.
RETT SYNDROME RESEARCH TRUST WEBSITE
by Kelly Rae Chi
Rett Syndrome doesn’t usually run in the family. Researchers led by Alessandra Renieri at the University of Siena in Italy encountered two exceptional cases: one pair of sisters with the same mutation in the Rett-causing gene MECP2, and a second pair with identical deletions within the gene.
Prof. Alessandra Renieri
University of Siena, Italy
Despite having the same mutations in MECP2, the sisters represented the clinical spectrum of the disorder. For each pair, one sister had classical Rett Syndrome—she was unable to speak or walk or use her hands—while the other had a milder form of the disorder (called Zapella) and could talk using short phrases, walk and retained some hand function. Researchers describe these four women and possible genetic reasons why the severities of their symptoms were so different, in a PLOS ONE paper published a few months ago.
It’s not surprising that girls with Rett Syndrome generally show a wide range of symptoms. That’s partly because a mutated copy of the MECP2 gene is located on only one of two X chromosomes in a female cell; the other copy is healthy. One X chromosome becomes inactive in each cell early in development. In rare cases when many cells express the healthy copy of MECP2, women show a milder form of Rett. In the new study, however, both pairs of women were similar in how many of their maternally or paternally derived X chromosomes were inactivated, suggesting that something else might explain the differing severities of their disease.
Hypothesizing that other genes could contribute to these differences, the scientists sequenced a small proportion of the women’s genomes (about 1%) that is thought to code for proteins. (This strategy, called exome sequencing, is a less costly and less burdensome in terms of data analysis compared with whole-genome sequencing, and in recent years it has been shown to identify previously unknown genes for rare, inherited disorders, such as Freeman-Sheldon syndrome.)
The team located 112 genetic variants on 108 genes that were exclusive to the women with classical Rett. A subset of these variations, about 10 to 20, is believed to be relevant to impaired protein function in Rett, based on what’s already known about them.
These genes are involved in a range of functions. Interestingly, both women with classic Rett have variants on at least six genes that have been previously linked to oxidative stress. (The two people with Zappella had variants on three.) In a follow-up study, Renieri’s group found that the women with classical Rett, but not the two with Zappella, showed molecular signs of oxidative stress compared with healthy controls. But the link between MECP2 mutations and oxidative stress is still unknown, the authors note.
The women with Zappella had exclusive variants in 80 genes, but none of these were shared by both. Some genes are linked to immune function, and the variants may be involved in protection from a more severe phenotype, says Renieri, a professor of medical genetics.
Although exome sequencing will continue to bear genetic clues on the variability of Rett Syndrome, the meaning of these variants will need further study, Renieri says. “I’m not sure now that all the variants we describe in the paper are relevant,” she admits. “In the next few years we will learn better how to interpret these results.”
Renieri’s group hopes to sequence the exomes of more people with severe and mild Rett Syndrome, to understand their genetic similarities and differences. It is easier to compare the genes of sisters because their genomes are 50% identical. But because sisters with Rett are so rare, they will need to compare unrelated patients, she says.
RETT SYNDROME RESEARCH TRUST WEBSITE
On April 23rd in New York City RSRT presented an event entitled “Curing Rett Syndrome – How Do We Get There?” The event was videotaped and is now available on RSRT’s YouTube channel.
Monica Coenraads
Executive Director of RSRT
Curing Rett Syndrome – How Do We Get There?
Monica gives an overview of the various approaches from gene therapy to drug screens and everything in between that are being pursued to cure Rett Syndrome. We encourage you to invest 30 minutes of your time and arm yourselves with the facts.
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Ben Philpot, Ph.D.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Gene Awakenings for the Treatment of Neurological Disorders
Late last year RSRT made a $2.2 million investment in the labs of Ben Philpot and his colleagues to conduct a screen to identify compounds that can unsilence a healthy copy of the mutated Rett gene. The screen is now up and running. Learn the basics of how the screen works and why we are optimistic about this approach.
Rett Syndrome Research Trust Blog 