This Page Last Updated on March 18, 2007 - UNDER CONSTRUCTION, SOME BAD LINKS

The following links are to myasthenia gravis reseacher homepages and research related websites. Included are two websites funded by the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.A., that can be used to search for research abstracts and results. A final website provided by the Johns Hopkins University is the human Genome Data Base, primarily useful for research on inherited diseases such as congenital myasthenia syndrome. Following these informational links is a listing of books and journals directed at the medical community with major sections on myasthenia gravis.

  Audrey S. Penn, M.D. is Deputy Director at NINDS of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.A..

Daniel B. Drachman, M.D., Professor of Neurology & W.W. Smith Charitable Trust Professor of Neuroimmunology at Johns Hopkins Medical School and a reknowned leader in MG research.

Sara Fuchs, M.D. at the Weizmann Institute in Israel is a leading researcher in myasthenia gravis and includes her research goals in her homepage.

Oral functions in patients with Neuromuscular Diseases,Dr. Florence Weijnen, Medical Biologist.   Her work is summarized and includes abstracts and pictures of posters used at the IXth International Conference on Myasthenia Gravis.   Her webpage without frames is also available.

Controlled Clinical Trials of Anything in Myasthenia Gravis, Robert M. Pascuzzi, MD , Department of Neurology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Letters to the Editor - November 1997 Archives of Neurology

Molecular mechanisms of HLA associations with myasthenia gravis by Hjelmström, Peter.  The first aim of this study was to identify the primary HLA polymorphisms which confer MG susceptibility and protection in a Swedish population.

Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIG) For The Treatment of Myasthenia Gravis-Part II describes a study designed to answer the question whether IVIG is helpful in the treatment of myasthenia gravis. Specific contacts for the five research centers in the United States are provided.

The IXth International Conference on Myasthenia Gravis and Related Disorders is May 7-10, 1997 in Santa Monica, California, U.S.A.. A synopsis of this conference by Professor John Newsom-Davis is available thanks to the MGA of the U.K.


U OF MINNESOTA RESEARCHERS SNIFF OUT NEW AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE THERAPY
The full text of the study by the University of Minnisota can be found at the above website. It describes the recently invented treatment now patented by Dr. Conti-Fine. The following text is from the Press Release describing the study. "A new treatment for myasthenia gravis (MG), the muscle weakening disease that killed Aristotle Onassis and affects one in 8,000 people in the United States, has been devised by University of Minnesota researchers. ..............A pilot clinical trial may begin soon for the nasally administered therapy, which prevented the disease in mice. The work is described in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. "

John Newsom-Davis Laboratory in England is a major research organization under it's namesakes leadership. It focuses on myasthenia gravis and other diseases of the neuromuscular junction.
Jon M. Lindstrom, PhD Trustee Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. "We are studying the biochemical and antigenic structure of muscle nicotinic acetylcholine receptors."
Wayne State University - Project needs blood from newly diagnosed MG patients and thymus tissue from thymectomy. T--cell and B-cell interactions is the basis for the Wayne State research under Dr. Robert P. Lisak.
Development and Function of the Synapse from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
GETTING THE MESSAGE ACROSS from Cornell University.. an excellent lay description of research efforts aimed at understanding the neurotransmission process utilizing modern methods.
Acetylcholinesterate: Nature's Vacuum Cleaner - Graphical representation of how the enzyme Acetylcholinesterase acts in the human nervous system. MPEG movies.
Neuro-Immunology Laboratories affiliated with the University of British Columbia and the Vancouver Hospital & Health Sciences Centre is studying the mechanisms underlying immune abnormality in Myasthenia Gravis utilizing lymphocytes and thymocytes obtained at thymectomy. They specialize in the AChR blood test for myasthenia gravis.
Neuromuscular Research locations are featured in this developing Italian homepage.
Myasthenia gravis research reported at the American Academy of Neurology 1996 Annual Meeting, summarized by Robert McMichael, M.D.
Study of thymectomy - Comparison of 30 patients with thymectomy to 30 patients without thymectomy.

        Comparison of a group of myasthenics using prednisilone + Imuran to another group using prednisilone + placebo.

Thymoma-Associated Myasthenia Gravis Transplantation of Thymoma and Extrathymomal Thymic Tissue into SCID Mice, American Journal of Pathology, May 1996 (Obviously technical but interesting anyway.)
Age-related resistance to experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis in rats. University of Limburg, Dept. of Immunology, Maastricht, The Netherlands J Immunology 1993 (Another technical article with possible implications for older patients.)
Research through MGFA Fellowships and Grants - a record of recent years funded projects. Consult the MGFA for future Nurses and Physicians Fellowships and Grants.
Expression of Neurofilaments and of a Titin Epitope in Thymic Epithelial Tumors ; Implications for the Pathogenesis of Myasthenia Gravis; The American Journal of Pathology: Volume 148, Number 06; Pages: 1839-1850; June 1996

  T-cell recognition of muscle acetylcholine receptor subunits in generalized and ocular myasthenia gravis.  Neurology 1998 Apr;50(4):1045-1054 by Wang ZY, Okita DK, Howard J Jr, Conti-Fine BM
Peptide analogs to pathogenic epitopes of the human acetylcholine receptor alpha subunit as potential modulators of myasthenia gravis; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Volume 93, Number 09; Pages: 4492-4497 Medical Sciences
A Physicans' Manual and Nurses' Manual have been developed for the medical community and are available both from the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America at a nominal cost. You can have one sent directly to a physician or nurse.
Introduction to the European Neuro Muscular Centre - ENMC stimulates and facilitates top-level scientific collaboration concerning many neuromuscular diseases.
Medline is available through the National Library of Medicine homepage.
NIH Office of Rare Diseases - Patients and the Public, Health Care Providers, Research Investigations
CRISP(Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects) is a detailed source of research grant information.
Mandelian Inheritance in Man provided by the NIH provides detailed information on inherited disease.
Genome Database provided by Johns Hopkins University deals with details of disease and genetics.

Note: The above three information sources are general (i.e. not specific to myasthenia gravis) and primarily for researchers and physicians. Searching for myasthenia provides some very interesting abstracts and papers for those willing to deal with the highly technical language.

- - Books and Journals with major sections on myasthenia gravis (for the medical community).

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