Veronica Hood, PhD

The 15th Annual Research Roundtable took place in Los Angeles, California on Thursday evening the 5th of December 2024. The night began with an announcement of the 2024 DSF Grant Awards, which included funding for five grants totaling $1.4M. The evening’s event then kicked off with DSF’s Scientific Director, Veronica Hood, PhD recounting some of the impressive […]

At last night’s 15th Annual DSF Research Roundtable, we announced the 2024 Grant Awardees. DSF is proud to be awarding a total of $1.4M to five research grants, bringing the total amount DSF has directed to research to over $10.5M since funding our first grant in 2010. This year’s funding focuses on several promising approaches

In today’s blog post, I answer some frequently asked questions surrounding SCN1A mutations and the diagnosis of Dravet syndrome. Understanding the relationship between a genetic testing result and a clinical diagnosis, not to mention predicting long-term outcomes, can be challenging and the relationships are not always clear cut. The majority of cases of Dravet syndrome

Research advancements have led to improvements in clinical care and the development of novel treatments for Dravet syndrome (DS). Despite being rare, DS is one of the most well-studied genetic epilepsies. DSF and the Dravet community have played a large part in these advancements. DSF’s ability to fund over $9 million in research has only

Dravet syndrome is a severe form of epilepsy that is primarily caused by mutations in the SCN1A gene, which encodes a sodium channel critical for the proper functioning of the brain. As a result, patients experience a multitude of challenges, including severe seizures, an increased risk of mortality, and developmental impacts on cognition, movement, and

Eisai recently communicated their decision to discontinue human trials and manufacturing of the experimental therapy, lorcaserin. The current Phase 3 trial has been discontinued and the Extended Access Program will end in November 2024. Patients will need to discontinue lorcaserin by October to complete final study visits no later than November. Unfortunately, there will no

2024 is proving to be a promising year for the advancement of targeted therapies for Dravet syndrome, including some newly enrolling clinical studies to investigate a novel genetic-based therapy from Encoded Therapeutics which we will discuss further in today’s blog post. Dravet syndrome is caused by mutations in one copy of the SCN1A gene, which