Ching Wang, MD, PhD, didn’t sign up for his pediatric neurology residency in 1990 to watch children die. But, as in nearly any medical specialty, there are some fatal diseases for which no effective treatment exists. Frustrated after delivering grim news to one too many sets of parents, Wang vowed to do something. He went back into the lab to learn more about spinal muscular atrophy, or SMA, and has spent the last 15 years researching the condition, which is the most common genetic disorder responsible for the deaths of children under two. . . .

Wang has been involved in identifying the cause of the disorder, cloning the responsible gene and modifying its expression. Now he’s the senior author on a research article that was published in the August issue of the Annals of Neurology that shows the genetic defect can be overcome in human cells with the condition.
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