Yale Researchers Awarded Grant to Develop Treatment of Williams Syndrome

Yale Researchers Awarded Grant to Develop Treatment of Williams Syndrome:

"The Kiev Foundation grant will support the research of Frank Giordano, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine (cardiovascular); William C. Sessa, professor and vice chair of the Department of Pharmacology and director of the Vascular Biology and Therapeutics Program; and George Tellides, M.D., professor of surgery (cardiothoracic), who will study the elastin gene in order to design new treatments for Williams Syndrome. The most severe problems of WS are caused by the loss of one copy of elastin, a gene on chromosome 7 that plays a key role in the maintenance of artery walls.

Giordano and Sessa will investigate whether the deletion of one copy of elastin causes changes in gene expression that lead to WS. Giordano’s lab will attempt to engineer transcription factors as a treatment to increase the expression of the remaining elastin gene. Sessa’s lab will concentrate on identifying microRNAs that can enhance that expression."