Funding outcome

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a serious childhood disease that causes muscle to slowly weaken over time. Children with DMD lose the ability to walk on their own and often develop life-threatening heart and breathing problems. Although new treatments are being developed, they do not stop the disease and do not work for all patients. This highlights the need to better understand how the disease works in the body. Muscle cells rely on small 'water channels' that help control how water moves in and out of cells, which is important for normal muscle function. In people with DMD, these water channels become unbalanced, one type decreases, while another increases. It is not clear if this change helps protect the muscle or makes the disease worse. This study will explore whether the increase in one of these water channels is the body's way of protecting muscle. Using mouse models, we will study muscle strength, scarring, and the ability of muscle to repair itself. We will compare healthy mice and mice with DMD that are missing specific water channels to see how their muscles respond without them. This will help us better understand the role of these channels in muscle health and disease. The results of this research could lead to new ways to reduce muscle damage and improve muscle repair. In the future, this may help make current and new treatments more effective and improve the quality of life for children and young adults with DMD.