Gene Discorery for Rare Bone Disorder

An article in the Los Angeles times, which stated that a gene that codes for FOP was recently discored and reported sunday in the Nature Genetics Journal. FOP is a severe bone disorder that strikes only about 1 in 2 million people that slowly converts muslces and tendons into hard bones. This usually leads patients to be bed ridden by mid 30's. This diseases, since it is so rare, is often always misdiagnosed and usually the treatments prescribed cause more harm than good. Therefore, this new discovery of the gene that codes for FOP could be a major break through in treating these rare patients. Dr. Frederick Kaplan has been researching this disease for approximetely 15 years and has found evidence that there could be a problem associated with a protein called bone morphogenetic protein, which is linked to bone growth. However, even though Kaplan has found a possibly problem, there still will be time maybe decades before an actual treatment results. His findings have just allowed strategies for many possible treatments to research.

Here is the Link:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-sci-fibro24apr24,1,241718.story?coll=la-health-medicine