For UCLA-based startup, new muscular dystrophy treatment is a personal mission
MyoGene Bio, a finalist in UC Startup Innovation Challenge, is developing a gene therapy for the deadly childhood condition
UCLA Wayne Lewis |
February 23, 2021
Courtney Young helped develop the gene therapy at the heart of a biotech startup, MyoGene Bio, when she was a doctoral student at UCLA from 2013 to 2018. But the kernel of the company’s endeavor is older still and definitively personal.
In 2008, when Young was in high school, she found out that her cousin, then just a toddler, had been diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. She made it her mission to cultivate the skills needed to provide better options for him and others who were suffering with the deadly muscle-wasting disease.