Forward.com

Blogging Through A Tough BattleThree young girls with juvenile Tay-Sachs — Dakota Bihn, Alexis Markowich, and Jashaia Small — are currently receiving umbilical-cord-blood therapy at Duke University Medical Center. The girls are under the care of Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, who, as the Forward reported last year, has already performed cord-blood therapy on children with Krabbé disease.…Read more

Tay-Sachs Drug Trial Yields ‘Neutral’ ResultsTwo clinical studies for the treatment of late-onset Tay-Sachs with Zavesca, a drug used to treat Gaucher disease, produced neutral results — “a scientific way of saying that it didn’t work,” said Kim Crawford, director of member services for the National Tay-Sachs & Allied Diseases Association.…Read more

Researchers Into Lysosomal Storage Find Common GroundEarlier this year, the Lysosomal Storage Disease Research Consortium awarded its first seven grants, which together total more than $200,000, to scientists conducting research into ameliorating the effects of lysosomal-storage diseases on the central nervous system. There are more than 40 of these diseases, called LSDs, including Tay-Sachs, Gaucher disease, mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) and Niemann-Pick disease.…Read more

High School Seniors Open Interfaith DialogueDuring the last school year, seniors at the Abraham Joshua Heschel High School, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, met regularly with their counterparts at Al-Iman, an Islamic day school in Jamaica, Queens.…Read more

Major League Baseball And JCCs Join ForcesIn late June, the JCC Association of North America and Major League Baseball announced grants to sponsor the after-school Rookie League Pitching Machine Program at 10 JCCs around the country.The league is geared toward players 12 and younger who are making the transition from hitting the ball off a tee to live-pitch baseball.…Read more