Nursery World - A group of debilitating and often fatal diseases that affect children

A group of debilitating and often fatal diseases that affect children are to be investigated by scientists at Oxford University thanks to a 120,000 grant from the medical charity Action Research. The team at the Glycobiology Institute in the Department of Biochemistry will spend three years looking at glycosphingolipid storage diseases - a group of genetic conditions that play havoc with the body's cells. One of the conditions, Tay-Sachs Disease, which affects one in 25 of the Jewish community and one in 250 of the general population, is fatal by the age of three or four after a child has become blind, mentally retarded and paralysed. Dr Frances Platt of Oxford University said there is an abnormal build-up of waste products which damage the sufferer's cells and stop them functioning properly, leading to death. The Oxford scientists are developing a new blood sampling technique to monitor the disease.

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