Tiny worms, with help from researchers, may hold key to treating rare childhood disease

A new worm model developed by Brown University researchers could play a key role in treating a rare genetic disease that causes paralysis in children and worsens with age. Developed in the lab of neuroscientist Anne Hart, a genetically engineered C. elegans nematode model provides a fast, inexpensive way to evaluate potential drug treatments for alternating hemiplegia of childhood, or AHC, a disorder that currently has no cure or effective treatments.