Muscle Highway: A Roadmap for Testing New Treatments For A Rare Brain Disorder

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Intermediate cell scaffolding (pink) looks like highways alongside neuromuscular junctions (green), specialized cells that stud the diaphragm and initiate breathing, and are stimulated by preceding motor neurons (red). This photomicrograph, analyzed by a high school summer research student named Karina, comes from the lab of pediatric pulmonologist and researcher Mai ElMallah MD, who is studying potential treatments for people with Pompe disease, a rare genetic disorder that erodes muscle tissue throughout the body.