SMA or Spinal muscular atrophy, the number one genetic killer of children under the age of two, is an often

stem cells

fatal disease that destroys the nerves controlling voluntary muscle movement, which affects crawling, walking, head  & neck control, and even swallowing.

SMA is one of the most prevalent genetic disorders.

1. SMA can strike anyone of any age, race or gender.
2. One in every 6,000 babies is born with SMA.
3. One in every 40 people carries the gene that causes SMA. The child of two carriers has a one in four chance of developing SMA.
4. 7.5 million Americans are carriers.

SMA does not affect sensation & intellectual activity in patients. It commonly is observed that patients with SMA are unusually bright and sociable.

US researchers say they can now watch genetic diseases unfolding in the laboratory after finding a way to make large numbers of affected cells. The advance, reported in the journal Nature, used skin cells from a child with a devastating genetic condition. These were turned first into stem cells – the body’s master cells – and then into nerve cells, which started to die as the gene fault took hold. The team said the earliest stages of the disease could now be identified.

Res: (news.bbc.co.uk, fsma.org)