
Canavan Disease is a Rare Inherited Brain Disease.
Children with Canavan do not reach any developmental milestones in terms of motor function.
Most children with Canavan do not live past their adolescence.
Currently, there is no cure for Canavan disease.
Cure Canavan Fund
Children With Canavan Disease Experience:
Brain and Muscle Atrophy,
Issues Swallowing,
Blindness,
Spasticity,
Seizures.



Dr. Paola Leone - Canavan Gene Therapy
Devoted Career
Paola Leone, Ph.D (Professor, Director of the Cell and Gene Therapy Center, Department of Cell Biology & Neuroscience, Rowan University, School of Osteopathic Medicine) has devoted her entire career to Canavan disease working with patients and in the lab developing treatments.
Techhnological Advancements
With technological advances and a more cell-targeted approach, gene-therapy is at a point to make a substantial impact.
Gene-Therapy
In 2000, her original study using gene-therapy in Canavan disease was the first time a viral vector was used to treat a neurological disease.
Canavan is the Ideal Candidate
Canavan is the ideal candidate because it is a disease restricted to the brain and is caused by a single gene-mutation.
“Some Canavan children have mutations that maintain a small amount of enzyme function sufficient enough to support motor function development, but in other children enzyme function is completely lost, thereby preventing any motor function. The ability to increase enzyme function through gene-therapy can promote great improvements in motor development and gives us confidence that achieving global corrective gene expression in targeted cells throughout the brain would prove as an effective treatment and possibly a cure”. – Dr. Paola Leone
