Mike Snape, PhD, chief scientific officer at AMO Pharma talks about his journey to studying myotonic dystrophy.

Transcription:

My name is Mike Snape. I am a PhD Neuroscientist by training. I started my career with an interest in the health conditions of older individuals, but around 1996, my son, then four years old, was diagnosed with autism. I became very interested in doing anything I possibly could within my experience as a neuroscientist in the pharma industry to try and help people with autism or related childhood onset conditions.

I usually use the term neurodevelopmental disorders. Over time, I’ve gravitated towards looking at genetically determined childhood onset, neurodevelopmental, and neurological conditions. AMO Pharma was formed in 2015. We’re a small company. I think we have 10 full-time people. The majority of the founders and management have work, It’s up to them to cover the specifics, similar personal interests and prior experience in drug development in this space.

We got interested in myotonic dystrophy through the angle that children that are born with myotonic dystrophy, the congenital onset form, have a neurodevelopmental disorder. They have milder muscle issues, although still present, but a large proportion of them have cognitive difficulties and autistic features. That’s become our project that we’ve been working on mainly at the present time.

To learn more about this and other musculoskeletal disorders, go to https://checkrare.com/diseases/musculoskeletal-diseases/