CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – Researchers at UVA Health are using gene editing to development a treatment for a severe, rare form of epilepsy.
“It gives a lot of hope for patients who have been told they have a genetic mutation,” said Manoj Patel, a professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at UVA.
SCN8A epileptic encephalopathy is a rare form of epilepsy that impacts about one in 52,000 children, according to Patel. In lab mice, Patel’s research team found that utilizing a gene editing technique called base editing can reverse the cause of the disorder…