Influencing the Community Working on a Cure
Curing Sanfilippo is our ultimate goal, but your support also allows us to play a critical roll in influencing the road that leads there.
The path from identifying symptoms to diagnosis to evaluating treatments needs to be as direct as possible and filled with accurate and patient-centric information for families, scientists, physicians, and regulators.
The following are projects led or supported by the Foundation that promote valuable, disease-specific and patient-preference information about Sanfilippo Syndrome, benefiting the scientific and medical communities as well as caregivers.
Projects To Influence Thinking
Any developmental delay or intellectual disability calls for genome sequencing
The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics strongly recommends exome and genome sequencing as a first or second-tier test for children with developmental delay or intellectual disability that occurs by age 18, as well as those with congenital anomalies that...
Advancing the Understanding of Special Education and Therapeutic Needs of Children with Neurodegenerative Disorders
The challenges of the pandemic shined a light on the critical role of special educators and rehabilitative therapists to protect the skills of children’ with neurodegenerative disorders. This academic publication and white paper provides teachers with a guide for...
Cure Sanfilippo agrees: The need to use surrogate biomarkers in an accelerated drug approval pathway for diseases like Sanfilippo
A powerful article from Dr. Emil D. Kakkis outlines the critical need for use of surrogate biomarkers in an accelerated drug approval pathway for diseases like Sanfilippo syndrome. In the article, "Aduhelm’s accelerated approval offers a promising roadmap for rare...
Free online CME course available on Sanfilippo syndrome
A free, online, continuing medical education (CME) course is available for any healthcare provider interested in learning about Sanfilippo syndrome. The 30-minute course is targeted to healthcare providers who are unfamiliar with Sanfilippo, also known as...
AAV immunity is a significant issue for genetic therapies for all diseases
Glenn and Cara O'Neill, President and Chief Science Officer, respectively, of Cure Sanfilippo Foundation, were honored to be invited by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) group to speak at their...
Peer-reviewed publication of first-ever Caregiver Preference Study on Sanfilippo
The first peer-reviewed publication of the Sanfilippo Caregiver Preference Study was released in December 2020 in Neurology and Therapy. This is the first-ever Caregiver Preference Study regarding Sanfilippo Syndrome, which explores what parents consider “meaningful...
2nd annual World Sanfilippo Awareness Day to be celebrated Nov. 16, 2020
People around the world are making a significant difference for children with Sanfilippo Syndrome. Each day, an effective, approved, and available treatment for Sanfilippo Syndrome is closer. Each year, World Sanfilippo Awareness Day is celebrated by this community...
Medical records of Sanfilippo children can accelerate discovery of a treatment
Parents and caregivers of children with Sanfilippo Syndrome have the opportunity to help accelerate drug development for the disease right from their homes. AllStripes, formerly RDMD, is a research platform dedicated to rare diseases that enables patients to...
Lack of appropriate education for children with significant special needs
Dr. Cara O'NeillChief Science Officer for Cure Sanfilippo Foundation The pandemic has Cure Sanfilippo Foundation embarking on some new advocacy work by Chief Science Officer Cara O'Neill. Many, many children with significant special needs, especially children with...
Global Genes’ RARE Cast podcast interviews Cara O’Neill
Dr. Cara O'Neill, Chief Science Officer for Cure Sanfilippo Foundation, discussed her own journey with Sanfilippo Syndrome, issues causing diagnostic delay, and how the Foundation is helping advance science for a cure in an interview as the Aug. 28 guest on Global...
“What is a life worth?” is an unconscious bias among clinicians
Dr. Cara O'Neill is Chief Science Officer for Cure Sanfilippo Foundation and mother to a 10-year-old daughter with Sanfilippo Syndrome. During a wide-ranging interview with Sonia Adnan of Instagram's autismlifegram.md, they explored the mentality toward treating...
‘Watch and wait’ approach to developmental delays is not acceptable anymore, says Dr. Cara O’Neill
Dr. Cara O'Neill, Chief Science Officer for Cure Sanfilippo Foundation, is also mother to a 10-year-old daughter with Sanfilippo Syndrome. She urged that the traditional "watch and wait" approach by physicians when a child first exhibits developmental delays is not...
Cure Sanfilippo joins in calling for addition to Cures 2.0 legislation
Cure Sanfilippo Foundation is one of 46 patient advocacy organizations to sign-on to a letter asking U.S. Representatives Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) and Fred Upton (R-Michigan) to include H.R. 4144 - Ending the Diagnostic Odyssey Act in the Cures 2.0 legislation. The...
Foundation contributes to published list of early symptoms of MPS III
Cure Sanfilippo Foundation Chief Science Officer Cara O'Neill, MD, FAAP, and Board Member Valerie Byers, PhD, are among the contributors of a newly-published paper that identifies the most-important, early symptoms of Mucopolysaccharidosis III (MPS III) to assist...
Combined response to FDA draft guidance on drug development
On May 5, Cure Sanfilippo Foundation submitted the combined Sanfilippo Patient Advocacy Group Response to the U.S. Food And Drug Administration's (FDA) February draft guidance regarding the development of drugs to treat MPS III (Sanfilippo Syndrome). The 39-page...
Sanfilippo caregivers invited to take RDCRN coronavirus survey
The novel coronavirus pandemic can have a serious impact on people with rare diseases and their families. Yet, not much is known about it. The Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN), which is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is conducting a...
Survey: Caring For A Child With Rare Genetic Disorder During COVID-19
Families with a rare genetic disorder such as Sanfilippo Syndrome will have a different experience than others during the COVID-19 emergency. Scientists at UCLA are working directly with families to better understand specific challenges and when they occur by...
What does “better” mean and who gets to decide that?
Dr. Cara O'Neill, Chief Science Officer for Cure Sanfilippo Foundation, posed this question regarding study endpoints to an audience of before the audience of research scientists, biotech leads and industry partners, physicians, U.S. Food & Drug Administration...
Caregiver Preference Study for Sanfilippo presented to FDA
The urgent mission to save children from the fatal and rapidly-degenerative disease Sanfilippo Syndrome must continue because the disease's devastating effects never stop, no matter what else is happening in the world. With this mindset, Cure Sanfilippo Foundation and...
Why and how to achieve novel outcomes in neurodegenerative gene therapy trials
Picking outcome measures for neurodegenerative gene therapy trials in rare disease is difficult. The conditions often have a lot of heterogeneity, relatively small sample sizes, and rarely disease-specific outcome measures. That is why "outside the box" thinking is...