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Researchers have unsilenced a gene in mice that is repressed in a disorder called Angelman syndrome, which causes seizures and developmental delays, among other symptoms. The findings raise hopes for a potential cure for the devastating disorder, which affects about one in 15,000 people, and suggest that other gene-silencing diseases could be targeted using a similar approach.
“The big take-home message is that you can turn the gene back on,” said Stormy Chamberlain, a geneticist at the University of Connecticut Health Center who was not involved in the study. “That really gives a lot of promise to the families with that disorder,” as well as patients with any disease that is the result of a functional copy of a gene being silenced, she added.
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