Local Conference Will Focus on Genetic Disease and the Brain

By Lakiesha McGhee, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

May 27–A Granite Bay couple’s efforts will help bring more than 100 medical experts to Sacramento beginning Thursday for a two-day conference on the latest findings about inherited metabolic disorders called lysosomal diseases and the brain.

The Lysosomal Diseases and the Brain conference, to be held at the Hyatt Regency in Sacramento, will include talks about a potential link between a type of these diseases and Parkinson’s disease. The conference is co-sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Greg and Deborah Macres of Granite Bay have raised more than $650,000 to fight Gaucher disease, the most common lysosomal disease. They founded the Children’s Gaucher Research Fund shortly after the death of their 4-year-old son, Gregory, in 1997. Gregory had Gaucher disease Type III, which involves accumulation of abnormal cells in the liver, spleen, lungs, lymph system, bones, central nervous system or brain.

Lysosomal storage disorders account for more than 40 diseases caused by enzyme deficiencies, according to the Lysosomal Disease Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. While each of these diseases are relatively rare, grouped together they affect one in about every 7,700 babies born, the hospital reports.

To register for the conference, visit the Web site www.lysosomal-brain-conf.org.

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