Research In Progress

• Autoimmune Rippling Muscles and Myasthenia Gravis
  with Gary Walker, Ph.D., in cell biology at Youngstown State University, am helping supervise a graduate student, Tom Watkins, studying antibodies to skeletal muscle in patients with autoimmune rippling muscle disease and myasthenia gravis. Tom is continuing these studies as a Ph.D. candidate in the biomedical science program at Kent State University under Dr. Robert Dorman, Dr. Gary Walker and myself. Dr. Walker and I are also supervising two additional graduate students -- one using subcellular fractionation to localize the antibody response in these patients; and the other using immunocytochemistry to localize the response.
• Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis following Polio: Treatment with Anti-enteroviral Agent
  Identified a patient who had polio as a child and developed ALS many years later as an adult. Both polio and ALS affect the same cells in the central nervous system, the anterior horn cells. Polio is an enterovirus. Other enteroviruses can also cause paralysis. Treated same patient with new antiviral agent for enteroviruses (not yet approved for use) after obtaining approval of Institutional Review Board at St. Elizabeth's Health Center and individual IND from FDA. I am in the process of evaluating the results. This is the first and, to my knowledge, only patient with ALS treated with this drug and the results are quite interesting.