Fragile X syndrome, also known as Martin-Bell syndrome or Escalante's syndrome is a form of mental retardation caused by a triplet (trinucleotide) repeat expansion on the X-chromosome. Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is inherited as an X-linked dominant condition with reduced penetrance. Males have only one X chromosome and hence those with the full expansion are symptomatic. They are mentally retarded and show other physical features associated with the condition. Females with one affected chromosome are either normal or show some signs of FXS. Males transmit the defect to their daughters only, while females transmit to both sons and daughters with a 50/50 chance. Usually only boys are affected, while the girls become carriers, although some girls do show symptoms and signs that can be attributed to FXS. This article details the symptoms, etiology and treatments in development for Fragile X...

Seaside Therapeutics: Strong Committment to Fragile X 
Seaside Therapeutics was founded by CEO Randall Carpenter M.D., and Mark Bear, Ph.D., Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, in late 2005. Earlier, Dr. Bear was at Brown University where he developed the science that underlies Seaside's pipeline in Fragile X and autism. The Cambridge MA company has 25 employees, up from just three a few years ago. Both founders were involved in an earlier venture, called Sention that ran out of funding. Shortly before its demise, Providence based Sention had entered into an exclusive licensing and R&D agreement with Merck to develop a family of compounds known as mGluR5 antagonists as potential treatments for Fragile X mental retardation...

Companies Covered In This Issue Include: Merck, Hemispherx, Neurologix, Shire, Watson, Janssen-Cilag, Oxygen Biotherapeutics, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Targacept, NeuroPace, Somaxon, Allon Therapeutics, St. Jude Medical, Medtronic, PTC Therapeutics, Avanir, Bristol-Myers, Nextim, Sangamo, Chelsea, Knopp Neuroscience, Elan, Transition Therapeutics, Alexza, Naurex, Sanofi-Aventis, Neurocrine, Envoy Medical, Actelion, Vivus, AVI Biopharma, Cephalon, MicroTransponder, Qestcor, Pfizer, Protalix, AcelRx, Apnex Medical, Brainscope, Neostim, Neuros Medical, Zogenix, BioBehavioral Diagnostics, Opexa, Ikano, Dormir, Opthotech, Posit, Neurocrine, Afferent, Syntropharma, CombinatoRx, Neuromed, Myomo, Rules-Based Medicine, NeurAxon, Stemedica, Anesiva, Seaside, aFraxis, Cortex, Arena Pharmaceuticals

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