All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
Sorted by date Results 1 - 7 of 7
The University of Colorado Boulder’s 10th annual GoldLab Symposium culminated with the inspirational story of Mila’s Miracle Foundation (MMF) as told by Julia Vitarello, Founder and CEO of MMF, and Dr. Timothy Yu M.D., Ph.D. Local resident Vitarello and Boston-based Yu used a tag-team presentation to describe a profound scientific breakthrough in personalized medicine for Vitarello’s daughter Mila, and its far-reaching implications. Larry Gold, CU professor of molecular cellular and devel...
Shortly before her family went to Boston early this year for Mila Makovec’s experimental treatment of Batten Disease, Mila’s symptoms worsened to the point that her mother, Julia Vitarello, thought she might be losing her daughter to the fatal genetic disease. The quantity and severity of seizures Mila was having skyrocketed to 30 times a day for two minutes at a time. Seven-year old Mila slumped forward most of the time, was losing her ability to hold herself up when standing and walking, and...
It was winter when the Makovec family uprooted their lives in Colorado to begin an experimental genetic treatment for seven-year old Mila in Boston. All efforts were focused on Mila at that critical juncture as she battled against Batten CLN7 disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disease which has been robbing the previously normal little girl of her of her sight, mobility, cognitive and speech abilities. The diagnosis of Batten Disease a year earlier radically changed the family's life and set...
Family hopeful it will improve her condition Mila Makovec and her family have traveled to Boston to undergo a very promising treatment for the specific gene mutation she has which resulted in Batten Disease. This illness has taken the local girl’s sight, speech, mobility, made her suffer from seizures and now, more imminently, it threatens her life. While her mother, Julia Vitarello, has been piloting Mila’s Miracle Foundation to bring to fruition a gene therapy treatment for Mila and oth...
For the average cost of a home in Boulder, rare diseases affecting hundreds of children could be curtailed or eradicated. Six-year-old Mila Makovec was diagnosed in late 2016 with one of these diseases and her family is looking to our community to raise $1M to help children in the same unfathomable situation. Diagnosing Mila’s illness was a journey unto itself. What doctors discovered years after worsening symptoms appeared, was that Mila (pronounced Mee’-la) has Batten Disease, a fatal gen...
Mila Makovec was an outgoing toddler who liked to sing, climb, hike and run. She enjoyed playing in the snow and watching Elmo on TV. But that all changed in late 2016, when her symptoms for a rare neurodegenerative disorder known as Batten disease became acute, and doctors at Children’s Hospital were finally able to make the diagnosis of a disease that affects only about one in every 100,000 people. Batten disease causes a variety of symptoms, from seizures and dementia, to gradual loss of s...
Mila Makovec was an outgoing toddler who liked to sing, climb, hike and run. She enjoyed playing in the snow and watching Elmo on TV. But that all changed in late 2016, when her symptoms for a rare neurodegenerative disorder known as Batten disease became acute, and doctors at Children’s Hospital were finally able to make the diagnosis of a disease that affects only about one in every 100,000 people. Batten disease causes a variety of symptoms, from seizures and dementia, to gradual loss of s...
