• U.Va. pathologists have found a way to reverse muscular dystrophy in mice, a promising step in the search to eradicate this muscle-wasting disease in humans. A research team led by Mani Mahadevan has shown for the first time that getting rid of poisonous ribonucleic acid in the muscle cells of mice can reverse myotonic dystrophy, the most common type of muscular dystrophy in adults, afflicting about 40,000 people in the U.S. Researchers duplicated the disease in mice but saw them return to normal—with fully restored heart and skeletal muscle function—when the toxic molecule was taken away. Mahadevan hopes the findings, published in the September issue of Nature Genetics, will lead to new therapies in the next few years.
• Traffic fatalities among senior citizens are expected to rise as the nation’s 75 million baby boomers age and continue to drive, according to a recent study co-authored by U.Va. engineering professor Richard Kent. He and fellow researchers studied police reports on thousands of vehicle accidents from 1992 to 2002 as a step toward developing new technologies to help seniors drive more safely. Older people, despite driving at lower average speeds than younger drivers and with a greater likelihood of wearing seatbelts, are more likely to be injured in an accident than younger drivers. Among the study’s other findings: The typical elderly driver fatality involved a belted, sober driver pulling into the path of an oncoming vehicle during the day and dying several days after a collision of moderate severity. In contrast, a driver fatality for someone aged 30 to 45 involved an unbelted, impaired driver losing control of a vehicle at night and dying during an extremely severe, single-vehicle crash. Kent’s study was named the best scientific paper for 2005 by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine.
• A prescription drug that helps chemotherapy patients could also help those debilitated by a different problem—cocaine addiction. U.Va. Health System researchers have found that ondansetron, in combination with behavioral therapy, may offer a new alternative for treating cocaine dependence. The study, led by Bankole Johnson, chair of U.Va.’s Department of Psychiatric Medicine, was published recently in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Cocaine causes a huge surge in the brain’s dopamine level, the brain’s pleasure molecule. Ondansetron, a serotonin antagonist drug, works by interfering with the dopamine, effectively blocking the “high” that cocaine gives. During a clinical trial involving 63 addicts, researchers tested the drug against a placebo and found that patients treated with the highest dose of ondansetron had more cocaine-free weeks that those who were given a placebo. Cocaine users have a high relapse rate under the currently available behavioral and psychosocial interventions. The preliminary findings by Johnson and his colleagues come at a time when, despite almost two decades of scientific effort, no medication has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration that treats cocaine addiction.
• A new study of age and gender estimates by U.Va.’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service shows that Virginia’s population growth is surging at both ends: school-age and elderly groups account for more than 40 percent of the state’s total growth. Localities with the largest percentage of residents aged 17 or younger were Stafford, Spotsylvania and Prince William counties. The top three localities with a population of 65 and older were all in eastern Virginia: Lancaster, Northumberland and Middlesex counties. The study, which examined population figures from 2000 to 2005, also ranked each Virginia locality by its “dependency ratio,” or its percentage of residents who are under 18 and over 65. The localities with the highest dependency ratios were Lancaster, Northumberland and Martinsville.

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