The Rare Moments

Check out the Minnesota Twins’ Target Field lit up for Rare Disease Day!

This Rare Disease Day, I am thinking about how phenomenal it is to see how rare oncology patients have benefitted from the 6 CAR T treatments now available! It is exciting to watch how continued advancements have turned CAR T into a new development paradigm for autoimmune diseases – looking forward to seeing these additional patient communities benefit from cell therapy!

In celebration of Rare Disease Day, I am excited to share our most recent draft class from the 2024 Young Investigator Draft! This year we highlighted the significant potential of research in this space when powered by the platform of sports—especially as we surpassed our $1 million in total funding granted. You can watch a recap of the event at the below link!

With extensive commercialization expertise and deep knowledge of rare diseases, Trinity Life Sciences has supported the launches of some of the most impactful drugs and therapies globally. We remain committed to helping our clients overcome unique commercialization challenges faced by specialized treatments and strive to create a better future for those living with rare diseases.

Jim Geraghty said it best today at the 9th Annual Rare Disease Day Event at the Broad Institute. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” when it comes to rare disease research. Always a science-focused and inspiring event at the Broad!

Connecting, Collaborating, Communicating, Challenges: Sharing experiences navigating family conversations in an n-of-1 investigational treatment setting. Learn more, below!

With approval of the first treatment to use gene editing to address a genetic rare disease, plus all the very recent innovations in base editing, prime editing, and lipid nanoparticle delivery, I’m hopeful we’ll see an ever-increasing number of gene editing programs in development for patient communities with genetically driven rare diseases. Kudos to the pioneers with development programs for rare cardiovascular diseases, rare blood cancers, rare hemoglobinopathies, rare bleeding disorders, rare metabolic disorders, rare neuromuscular diseases, and rare inherited retinal diseases!

So incredibly touched to receive this book from our friends at Ultragenyx. Dr. Emil Kakkis has been at the forefront of rare disease research throughout his entire career. I’m looking forward to reading this book throughout Rare Disease Week!

Happening now through 25 Feb – VCP International Conference!! Check out the abstracts from the many researchers who are participating in this meeting. By bridging the gaps between various disciplines, from oncology to neurodegeneration, the Cure VCP conference will drive innovation and coordination in research, accelerating our progress to find a cure for valosin-containing protein (VCP) associate multisystem proteinopathy (MSP).

Fall of 2015, I attended my first rare disease advocacy conference. It was Global Genes Patient Advocacy Summit. I was overwhelmed and amazed at how many people were advocating for rare diseases and how many different paths they took. Meeting Bo Bigelow there certainly shaped my path. Although we faced different diagnoses (USP7 for his daughter Tess and Menkes Syndrome for my son Lucas), we had so much in common. Eventually we co-founded The Disorder Channel to stream rare disease films on TV. We collaborated with Global Genes to screen some of these films. And three years ago, I joined the staff at Global Genes to lead an online support community, to encourage others to share their #ZebraTales, to teach them rare disease filmmaking, and to help plan that same conference that started it all for me.