Welcome to the World of FSHD Research
Our Mission
The mission of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center is to further our understanding of the underlying molecular, genetic, and epigenetic pathologies of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) and to translate this basic understanding into the clinic through development of FSHD therapeutics. To achieve this objective, the Wellstone Center has established a large repository of FSHD muscle tissue and derived muscle cells, available to FSHD researchers worldwide, and developed a FSHD disease biomarker database and new disease models for pre-clinical research to develop FSHD therapeutics for clinical trials. The Center, led by Dr. Charles P. Emerson at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and Dr. Louis Kunkel at Children's Hospital Boston, is an highly collaborative and multidisciplinary team of basic and clinical investigators with laboratories at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Children’s Hospital Boston, Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio, the University of Utah, and is partnered with the FSHD Society for patient outreach activities and with biotech industry for therapeutic development. This partnership of basic, clinical and industry scientists with FSHD patients and their families enables the Wellstone Center to make unique contributions towards development of new treatments for this devastating disease and to provide leadership for FSHD research world-wide.
In addition to its contributions to research and therapeutic development, the Wellstone Program has developed a unique biorepository of FSHD muscle biopsy-derived stem cells that are available on request to FSHD researchers internationally as cell models of FSHD disease pathology. Wellstone Bioresources.
Wellstone News
- FSHD Society New England Chapter Summer Picnic: July 16, 2022; Windsor Locks, CT
- FSHD Society IRC Meeting: June 16-17, 2022; Orlando, FL
- FSHD Society New England Chapter meeting: May 11, 2022; virtual
- MDA Clinical & Scientific Conference: March 13-16, 2022; virtual
- FSHD Society IRC Meeting: June 24-25, 2021; virtual
- MDA Clinical & Scientific Conference: March 15 - 18, 2021; virtual
- FSHD Society IRC Meeting: June 25-26, 2020; virtual
- MDA Clinical & Scientific Conference: June 18-September 29, 2020; virtual
- FSHD Society New England Chapter meeting: April 28, 2020; virtual
- FSHD New England Family Day at the UMass Wellstone Center: January 12, 2020