DaysWithoutEnd
24 Jun 2004, 08:37 AM
Researchers: German super toddler has 'muscle man' genetic mutation
By Linda A. Johnson
Associated Press
Somewhere in Germany is a baby Superman, born in Berlin with bulging arm and leg muscles. Not yet 5 years old, he can hold 7-pound weights with arms extended, something many adults cannot do. He has muscles twice the size of other kids his age and half their body fat.
The discovery, reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine, represents the first documented human case of such a mutation.
Many scientists believe the find could eventually lead to drugs for treating people with muscular dystrophy and other muscle-destroying conditions. And athletes would almost surely want to get their hands on such a drug and use it like steroids to bulk up.
The boy's mutant DNA segment was found to block production of a protein called myostatin that limits muscle growth. The news comes seven years after researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore created buff "mighty mice" by "turning off" the gene that directs cells to produce myostatin.
"Now we can say that myostatin acts the same way in humans as in animals," said the boy's physician, Dr. Markus Schuelke, a professor in the Child Neurology Department at Charite/University Medical Center Berlin.
Given the huge potential market for such drugs, researchers at universities and pharmaceutical companies already are trying to find a way to limit the amount and activity of myostatin in the body. Wyeth has just begun human tests of a genetically engineered antibody designed to neutralize myostatin.
Muscle wasting also is common in the elderly and patients with diseases such as cancer and AIDS.
Researchers would not disclose the German boy's identity but said he was born to a somewhat muscular mother, a 24-year-old former professional sprinter. Her brother and three other close male relatives all were unusually strong, with one of them a construction worker able to unload heavy curbstones by hand.
By Linda A. Johnson
Associated Press
Somewhere in Germany is a baby Superman, born in Berlin with bulging arm and leg muscles. Not yet 5 years old, he can hold 7-pound weights with arms extended, something many adults cannot do. He has muscles twice the size of other kids his age and half their body fat.
The discovery, reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine, represents the first documented human case of such a mutation.
Many scientists believe the find could eventually lead to drugs for treating people with muscular dystrophy and other muscle-destroying conditions. And athletes would almost surely want to get their hands on such a drug and use it like steroids to bulk up.
The boy's mutant DNA segment was found to block production of a protein called myostatin that limits muscle growth. The news comes seven years after researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore created buff "mighty mice" by "turning off" the gene that directs cells to produce myostatin.
"Now we can say that myostatin acts the same way in humans as in animals," said the boy's physician, Dr. Markus Schuelke, a professor in the Child Neurology Department at Charite/University Medical Center Berlin.
Given the huge potential market for such drugs, researchers at universities and pharmaceutical companies already are trying to find a way to limit the amount and activity of myostatin in the body. Wyeth has just begun human tests of a genetically engineered antibody designed to neutralize myostatin.
Muscle wasting also is common in the elderly and patients with diseases such as cancer and AIDS.
Researchers would not disclose the German boy's identity but said he was born to a somewhat muscular mother, a 24-year-old former professional sprinter. Her brother and three other close male relatives all were unusually strong, with one of them a construction worker able to unload heavy curbstones by hand.