Dr. Rubén Hernández, researcher of the Cima University of Navarrahas been distinguished by the Dravet Syndrome Foundation within the call for innovative projects of research preclinical for this rare disease. The scholarship, endowed with 58,000 euros, will be used to advance the safety and efficacy of gene therapy for the treatment of this pathology.

Dravet syndrome is a rare disease Genetics that affects 1 in 15,000 people. It is one of the most severe genetic encephalopathies. It causes very frequent seizures, sometimes of long duration, which do not respond well to conventional pharmacological treatments. In addition, patients suffer from impaired motor and intellectual capacity. In more than 80% of cases the cause is a mutation in the SCN1A gene.

"Preliminaryprograms of study from our group confirms that high-capacity adenoviral vectors provide a therapeutic effect in mouse models. Thanks to this scholarship, we will further explore aspects such as the immune response to the vectors and how to modulate it," explains Dr. Rubén Hernández, researcher of the Gene Therapy and Regulation of Gene Expression Program at Cima.

Along with Dr. Hernandez's scholarship , the Scientific committee of the Dravet Syndrome Foundation has selected a project by Dr. Massimo Mantegazza, head of group at the high school of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology (IPMC), CNRS and University of the Côte d'Azur in France.