Public release date: 1-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Erin Pope Erin.Pope@NationwideChildrens.org 614-355-0495 Nationwide Children's Hospital

In 2010, the Center for Gene Therapy at Nationwide Children's Hospital launched a monthly podcast entitled, "This Month in Muscular Dystrophy," featuring internationally known scientists discussing the latest research in muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular disorders. Now, these podcasts will be available for users on iTunes and at http://www.NationwideChildrens.org/muscular-dystrophy-podcast.

The podcasts are geared toward patients, their families and primary care physicians who take care of patients with neuromuscular diseases. Hosted by Kevin Flanigan, MD, an attending physician in Neurology at Nationwide Children's Hospital, and a principal investigator in the Center for Gene Therapy in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's, the programs include interviews with authors of recent scientific publications discussing how their work improves understanding of inherited neuromuscular diseases and what their findings might mean for treatment.

New programs available for download on iTunes include:

Podcasts from previous months have also been uploaded to iTunes and are available for download.

"There is a lot of exciting work going on in the field of neuromuscular disease, and for patients and their families, it may be hard to get access to information about new results," said Dr. Flanigan, also a professor of Pediatrics and Neurology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. "Our goal in offering this monthly podcast is to provide a way for people affected by the muscular dystrophies and related disorders to hear directly from top researchers about their latest results. It's my job to converse in understandable terms with these researchers about what is useful or exciting in their work."

Patients and their families are eager to find reliable information, especially about what new therapies are entering trials. With these podcasts available on iTunes, patients and their families have access to this information at their fingertips. These monthly podcasts provide reliable information directly from leading scientists and physicians in the field to empower patients to take the information they learn into their own clinics to discuss with their doctors. The podcasts also serve to provide reliable information to primary care physicians who often have the most contact with patients who have neuromuscular disorders.

"Through these podcasts, I think we can reinforce the hope shared by all families, and let them know that many pathways that may lead to meaningful treatments are being explored," Dr. Flanigan added.

Dr. Flanigan's primary research interest is in the genetic and molecular characterization of inherited neuromuscular diseases particularly muscular dystrophies and in the development of therapies directed toward these diseases.

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Nationwide Children's Hospital neuromuscular disorder podcasts now available on iTunes