A team from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) in Badalona is performing an experiment at the ALBA Synchrotron to obtain for the first time 3D images of cells with this disease.
Friedreich’s ataxia affects more than 3,000 people in Spain, causing serious mobility problems and other severe illnesses such as heart disease. At present there is no treatment to prevent or cure the disease.
Friedreich’s ataxia is a rare neurodegenerative disease that progressively damages mobility, balance and coordination. It is an inherited disease, caused by a genetic mutation, that can appear when both parents are carriers. A research group from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), at the Can Ruti Campus in Badalona, led by Dr. Antoni Matilla, is looking into the causes and possible treatments for this disease that results in high disability and an important decrease in the patients’ quality of life.
“Today there is no treatment or cure for Friedreich’s ataxia. It is necessary to try to understand how the disease develops in order to propose therapeutic solutions”, says Dr. Ivelisse Sánchez, co-Principal Investigator of this project at the Neurogenetics Unit of the IGTP. Researchers are now analysing donors’ cells in the ALBA Synchrotron to see the changes caused by the disease.
Image: Dr. Ivelisse Sánchez, co-Principal Investigator of the project, and pre-doctoral researcher Eudald Balagué at the MISTRAL beamline.