CLN1 Disease Patient Treated with Gene Therapy Started by Taylor’s Tale

By Laura King Edwards

Since Taylor’s diagnosis in 2006, I’ve worked hard to help give CLN1 disease (Batten disease) patients — children like my sister — a meaningful treatment. Today, I’m happy to share that a patient with CLN1 disease was recently treated with the investigational gene therapy candidate TSHA-118 — a program that began with a dream and a mother’s intuition.

When Taylor’s Tale Co-Founder and President Sharon King first met Dr. Steven Gray, she saw great promise in the young investigator’s work. That’s why, months later, she and I met with Dr. Gray to discuss the possibility of adapting the novel approach for CLN1 disease. It’s why, on Rare Disease Day in 2013, I had the pleasure of announcing that we had secured the necessary funding to kick off a CLN1 disease study at the University of North Carolina. 

Much has changed since that hopeful day. I haven’t held my late sister’s hand or heard her laugh in more than five long years. This fight has always been about her.

But while TSHA-118 came too late to save Taylor’s life, it stands as her lasting legacy. My heart is happy for the patient recently treated and their family. I’m proud that my family and our dedicated volunteers and donors had a critical hand in making it possible. And for as long as I live, I’ll continue to advocate so that others may benefit in the future. 

The CLN1 disease patient was treated under an individual-patient investigator-initiated IND request from RUSH University Medical College. Taysha Gene Therapies is not currently evaluating TSHA-118 for CLN1 disease. However, the company continues to evaluate potential partnerships and opportunities to further the CLN1 program development. 

We’ll be watching. In the meantime, read the official announcement from Taysha.


CLN1 Disease Clinical Trial Achieves Critical Milestone in Canada

By Laura King Edwards

This week, Taysha Gene Therapies (Taysha) announced an important milestone for TSHA-118, its CLN1 disease (Batten disease) clinical trial.

The news signifies one more giant step toward achieving the dream driven by Taylor’s 2006 diagnosis. They say it takes a village, and that couldn’t be closer to the truth. We’re grateful to the entire team at Taysha as well as our friend, the incomparable Steven Gray, PhD, who developed the treatment in his lab with support from Taylor’s Tale. If not for Dr. Gray’s passion, persistence and prowess, families fighting CLN1 disease would have far less hope today.

Please read the community letter below. The clinical trial is not enrolling patients at this time, but if you have questions, please contact Taysha.


A New Partner for the Push to the Summit

By Sharon King

In a different version of our story, Taylor may have celebrated her 22nd birthday with us today.

Jim and I have wondered so many times in recent weeks: What would our daughter be doing if Batten disease had not cut her life short on an early fall day in 2018? She may be a recent college graduate figuring out a new job or starting graduate school while the world reacts to a pandemic. She may have someone special in her life. She may be living at home for a while or making her own home. We talk about how much she would love her nephew, Jack. We smile when we remember her bubbly, magnetic personality. Our youngest child was, after all, an extrovert in a family of mostly introverts.

Oh, how we wonder … 

In the beginning, Taylor’s life held much hope and promise. That all changed, of course, when a flaw in her CLN1 gene surfaced shortly before her eighth birthday in 2006. Batten disease sentenced her to blindness, seizures, cognitive and motor impairment, and an early death. 

Shortly after Taylor’s diagnosis, we set out to change the curve. We were told it would be close to impossible to develop a treatment for an ultra-rare disease. We chose to believe otherwise. Because we had to try — for Taylor.

We funded a handful of research projects for about five years. Then, we met a young researcher named Steven Gray with a big idea: gene therapy as an approach to replace the flawed gene causing CLN1 disease, Taylor’s form of Batten disease. Dr. Gray’s intellect was apparent, his passion infectious. We believed in him. And in 2013, we funded him.

Dr. Gray in lab

Friends, family, neighbors … so many people shared their time and treasure to help us scale the mountain. Somehow, we climbed many mountains. We did it together: When one group of climbers finished their part, the next group said, “We’ve got this,” and kept climbing higher. 

Dr. Gray’s research data was strong, and a few years later, it was time for a new partner to step in. In 2016, the work was licensed to Abeona Therapeutics. Abeona further developed the program, receiving an Investigational New Drug (IND) allowance from the FDA in May 2019. This allowance clears the way for a clinical trial, but the climb stalled. Taylor was already gone by then, but we were still pushing, clawing, fighting to keep our promise to her and help families like ours. 

This week, Taysha Gene Therapies — where our friend Dr. Gray is now chief scientific advisor — announced the acquisition of the CLN1 disease program from Abeona Therapeutics. Taysha will move forward the IND and begin the long-awaited clinical trial in the near future.

It was incredible news to begin Taylor’s birthday week, and I have no doubt that my daughter is up there, pulling for us, pulling strings, making magic happen.

Taysha President, CEO and Founder R.A. Session II said “Taysha is built on a powerful foundation: a combination of proven science, accomplished colleagues and an unrivaled alliance with a gene therapy powerhouse. Alongside Steven Gray, Ph.D., Berge Minassian, M.D., and our additional brilliant partners at the UT Southwestern Gene Therapy Program, we are seamlessly building an integrated engine for new cures.”

I’m overjoyed that Steve Gray is once again part of reaching the summit for a CLN1 disease program that began with hope, a dream and people who cared enough to believe with us. While it wasn’t in time for Taylor, I’m certain the timing of this week’s announcement is her birthday wish from afar.

Thanks for your support over the years. We haven’t reached the summit, but Taysha will be a strong and able leader to help us get there. The final leg is a journey worth making for children who have no treatment options.  

Children like Taylor.


One Year Later: Notice Served

By Sharon King

There is so much love in this photograph. A family wrapped around its youngest member as she celebrates her achievement in completing a second 5k — and improving her time. You might be thinking this isn’t such a big deal, but Taylor was blind and beginning to suffer additional effects of CLN1 disease (Batten disease). She was a winner that day, as she was so many other days in her short life.

Taylor’s efforts inspired her older sister to begin running. When Batten disease stole Taylor’s ability to run, Laura took the baton and ran for her. Laura is still running for Taylor today, even though Taylor left us 20 months ago.

Imagine the photograph without Taylor. There is such a hole in the middle of our family, and we’ll never be able to fill it.

You haven’t heard much from Taylor’s Tale in the past year. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out life without Taylor. My daughter finished her race, but I’ll never say that Batten disease won. It’s still running, and Taylor’s family and so many others are now carrying the baton on her behalf. Batten disease only wins if we quit before we reach the finish line.

I searched “Tips for Winning a Race” and found the following suggestions from WikiHow:

  • Go slow at first, then pick up your pace during the end of the race.
  • Keep most of your energy until the last lap.
  • Winning a race is a lot about the training and preparation as well as how skilled you are but that’s not everything. Winning a race has to do with the confidence, competitiveness and mindset of the runner, swimmer, biker, etc.
  • Without the heart and the will to win one will never win any race.

A year ago today, I thought we were coming up on a significant mile-marker — not yet the finish line, but the glimpse of something worth cheering about. On May 21, 2019, Abeona Therapeutics made an announcement:

… cleared to begin a Phase 1/2 clinical trial evaluating its novel, one-time gene therapy ABO-202 for the treatment of CLN1 disease, following acceptance of its Investigational New Drug (IND) application by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Abeona Therapeutics

In other words, they were cleared to begin a clinical trial. Yet one year later, we are still waiting on the trial to begin. Word to the wise — just because you see the goal over the horizon, doesn’t mean you can slow down.

I’m looking at you, Abeona. I’m watching. And I’m not watching idly.

… pick up your pace during the end of the race…keep most of your energy until the last lap …

So, I’m asking myself, what is the mindset of top athletes? I believe it is the realization that whatever adversity they face, they still have the ability to be successful.

Confidence

Taylor faced so much adversity — more than her fair share, for sure. Meanwhile, she never complained. She found her way.

We can find our way through this difficulty, too, because we have the heart and the will to win …

I’m a mother with high expectations (I’ve been in training for 14 years, and I’ve earned the right). From here on out, I intend to be fierce. Relentless. Take-no-prisoners tough.

For her.

For all of the children and families living with CLN1 disease, now and in the future.

Notice served.


For Patients and Their Families, CLN1 Disease is a Daily Struggle

By Lillis Hendrickson

It’s 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning, but Kyleen Douglas has been up since 6 a.m. the day before. Her daughter, Kailyn, 8, hasn’t slept either. Kailyn has CLN1 disease (Batten disease). When she was first diagnosed two years ago, she didn’t have any mobility or vision issues, but her symptoms progressed, including loss of speech and motor function and sleep disruption.

Kailyn Douglas and family
Kailyn Douglas (center) has CLN1 disease.

“The day isn’t carefree anymore,” Kyleen said. “Between worrying about getting Kailyn to school or physical therapy, tracking her moods and her sleep, making sure she’s taken her medicine, watching her to see if that stare is a normal stare or a silent seizure, there isn’t a moment to breathe or be calm.”

Joe Coyne’s son Garrett, 9, also suffers from CLN1 disease. Diagnosed at age 4, Garrett now requires constant care.

“It’s not easy,” Joe said. “Twenty-four-hour care is 24-hour care. We get up early with Garrett, change and feed him. We move him from an activity chair to a wheelchair, and eventually get him to school for a few hours. One of us has to be home when he gets out, and then we change him and feed him. Nancy and I rotate nights sleeping with Garrett to monitor if his feeding tube comes out or if he’s struggling to sleep.”

Coyne family
Father Joe Coyne says Garrett (center) requires 24-hour care.

Kailyn and Garrett have aides who visit during the week, giving their parents and siblings a chance to take a break, grab groceries, clean or spend time with their other children.

“We have an aide who comes a few days a week for just a couple of hours, but it gives me a chance to sit with Keeleigh and do homework or run out for an errand,” Kyleen said.

“I never understood why families with disabilities disappear, but the difficulties of traveling or even just getting out in the community can be overwhelming,” Joe echoed. “Trying to leave the house for the grocery store isn’t a quick trip anymore.”

Both Joe and Kyleen feel the same way: exhausted. Not only do they spend most of their time caring for their children, they have the added pressure of trying to keep ahead of CLN1 disease as it progresses. Without a clear roadmap, they’re left to deal with problems as they arise, searching for the appropriate specialist, therapist or piece of equipment. They say a clinical care strategy could change that.

“A lot of people I interact with say, ‘I don’t know how you do it.’ But what else would I do?” Kyleen said. “You either give up, or you figure it out. Having a care strategy would not have given us any time back, but it would have changed how we spent that time — with Kailyn.”

“Having a care strategy would relieve a massive amount of stress,” Joe said. “Sometimes it can take months to resolve an issue, but if we knew how to address things before they arose, it would help. It would give you best practices, talking points with your doctor, so that you could spend less time researching and more time focusing on the things that are important, like your kid and your family. You can try to have as normal of an unnormal family as you’ll ever have.”

Currently, no such resource exists, leaving families like Joe’s and Kyleen’s to search the internet for limited, disheartening information. Dr. Susan Shaffner, a general pediatrician in Charlotte, North Carolina, supports the development of protocols for doctors, patients and families for CLN1 disease and other rare diseases.

“Forming care strategies is so important for patients, parents and physicians,” Shaffner said. “Right now, it’s a matter of seeking out a specialist as issues arise, which isn’t proactive and can be time-consuming for doctors and parents. With other common disorders, there is a protocol, a template you go through — you get tests at certain ages or milestones, you can go to multidisciplinary clinics to see all of your specialists in one place. This is what we need to see for rare diseases as well, especially those like Batten.”

In May, Taylor’s Tale brought together a multidisciplinary team from around the globe to discuss clinical care strategies for CLN1 disease. Arming doctors and parents with information and actionable steps can drive lasting change over time for families like the Douglases and the Coynes. Stay tuned for more.


Our Dream is Coming True

By Laura King Edwards

I’m thrilled to share news of an incredible milestone achieved last week: FDA clearance of an investigational new drug (IND) application for a novel, one-time gene therapy to treat CLN1 disease (a form of Batten disease). This gives Abeona Therapeutics the green light to begin a Phase 1/2 clinical trial evaluating the treatment in patients. You can read the entire press release on Abeona’s website here.

Though we’re proud of everything we’ve done for children and others like Taylor, this is why we founded Taylor’s Tale more than a decade ago: to spearhead and enable the development of a viable treatment for CLN1 disease. So many called it an impossible mission, but we believed enough to try, even after it became clear Taylor wouldn’t survive long enough to benefit from such an achievement. The photo above was taken in the lab of Dr. Steven Gray, our partner and friend who developed the technology, on the day we celebrated the first birthday of mice treated with his innovative gene therapy approach. It was a happy day and a sign of more good things to come. 

We’re grateful for Steve as well as Ale Rozenberg, who played an instrumental role in moving Steve’s work forward, and the entire team at Abeona Therapeutics for all they’ve done to guide it to the clinical stage. Thanks also to you, our donors, friends and volunteers, for your gifts of love, money and time. Our dream is coming true, but we couldn’t have done it alone. 

Though this is a significant win, our work is far from complete, and I hope you’ll stay on the journey with us. To learn how you can continue supporting Taylor’s Tale, send us a note.


A Letter to My Sister on National Siblings Day

By Laura King Edwards

It’s National Siblings Day, and signs of you are everywhere.

The dangly earrings I wore to the office — the ones you called pom-poms.

The Taylor Swift song that came on the radio on my drive home from work.

The newborn flowers (pink, your favorite) bursting with color and vibrance and life in my front yard.

The Tillamook ice cream in my freezer, made with love by the Tillamook cows you visited on one of your many trips to Oregon.

The running shoes with the bald tires and frayed laces and muted shades, the ones I haven’t worn for five years but refuse to throw away because I wore them that day I first raced in the dark for you.

The purple shirt on my back and the purple band on my wrist.

The fuzzy dog at my feet that somehow always understood not to paw at your face, even when she was a puppy and you could still see a little.

The dried flowers in my dining room, still just as bright as they were in the church that October day.

Your classmates from Fletcher who are college juniors this year. The impossibly grown-up, solemn faces in the pews.

The guest room you never used.

The way my son smiles at me, his deep blue eyes equal parts sweetness and spunk.

The lump I feel in my throat when I remember he’ll never know you.


Missing Taylor

By Laura King Edwards

I have a four-month-old baby, and his daddy has the flu. Between my housemates, a full-time job, Taylor’s Tale work and promotion for my new book, “Run to the Light,” I didn’t get much sleep this week.

That’s why, when I crawled across the timing mats with 1,000 other runners at this morning’s Charlotte 10 Miler, I didn’t expect much. After John tested positive for the flu (yes, he had a flu shot) last night, I took our son, stuffed items I thought we’d need into a haphazard collection of bags, and escaped to my parents’ house 11 miles to the northeast. I was pumping after midnight and pumping at 5 a.m. I left half my race gear at home. I had a million things on my mind and exactly zero quality runs in the two weeks leading up to race day.

But though the course changed some for 2019, this race feels like an old friend. I ran its very first edition, in 2012, and I used to win age group awards when the field was smaller. I’ve run other 10-mile races but set my PR (1:17) here. I appreciate how the quiet course, winding mostly over still water and through stands of trees on a greenway, blocks out the chronic injuries and pain that make healthy weeks feel like a blessing, not a given.

My mind wandered as I ran today, mostly toward thoughts of my sister. Some days I’m still surprised to realize that Taylor is really gone, gone to a place I can’t follow, a place where I can’t hold her hand or tell her I love her and know for sure that she heard me.

Taylor died on September 26, and in some ways, the 128 days since her death have felt as if they happened in a different dimension. Jack was born just six days before we lost my sister — I like to think they passed each other on the road to heaven. Meanwhile, I published a book and ran a half marathon blindfolded and went back to my agency job, and somewhere in the midst of all of those things and more, I learned how to be a mom (I’m still learning).

I haven’t had time to miss my sister. But I miss her still. Oh, how I miss that sweet girl.

Last week, I ran with Jack for the first time. Outside, cloaked in the January sunshine, I couldn’t help but wonder whether, if she’d been healthy, his Aunt Taylor would have been beside me, hankering for a turn pushing the stroller. I often try to imagine what kind of person my son will grow to become and whether he’ll love the same things his mother loves. Then I’ll remember I used to do that with my sister before Batten disease, even though I favored shorts and floppy shirts over frilly dresses, while she loved pink and purple and wore lots of jewelry and had more spunk in her little finger than I had in my whole body.

My husband and I will teach our son that life is a blessing. That the best gifts are the gifts we earn, and that we can always find a reason to be happy. I’m sad Taylor didn’t have the opportunities I covet for Jack. I’m sad life on Earth with the people who loved her was such a brief stop on her journey. But Taylor’s loss, and her ultimate sacrifice, are exactly why I recognize the value of each day. I’d give anything to have my sister here with me.

The Charlotte 10 Miler featured a new course this year, with a late climb that made me question racing on battered legs and ankles and feet with four hours of sleep. Instead of walking, I pumped my arms. I pushed to the top. And as I crested the hill, I felt filled with a new sense of purpose to carry me through 2019, the first full year without our sweet T.

It’s good to be back.

Laura and Jack


Real Magic

By Laura King Edwards

Five years ago, I spent five months learning to run without my vision, strapping on a blindfold a couple of nights a week and setting out into the dark world for two or five or nine miles with my friend and guide, Andrew Swistak. And on a chilly November morning, I crossed the finish line of a half marathon course ringed by soaring skyscrapers and cheering people and trees bursting with golden color I couldn’t see.

2013 blindfolded finish

The effort had started out partly as a publicity stunt to support Taylor’s Tale and partly as a unique way to honor my blind sister, who had run her first 5K race on the same course in 2008.  I didn’t realize that the experience – both the race itself and the training it required – would save my own life at a time when I’d nearly given up hope. Hope in the race to save my sister from Batten disease, and hope in my ability to be happy in any phase of my existence even as Taylor was dying.

Taylor's 5K finish

It was such a magical day that I was sure I couldn’t replicate it. So instead of setting a date for my next blindfolded half marathon, I set out to run a race – sighted – in all 50 states. And on the plane bound to Oregon, my first, the following August, I began writing a book.

I finished the manuscript in 10 months, but it took longer to convince a publisher of the audience for a story inspired by one child’s fight against an ultra-rare disease. That word – rare – can be the kiss of death, as so many rare disease advocates know too well. “That’s a really touching story, and Batten disease sure is sad,” says the would-be agent or publisher or donor. “But the world has so many other problems that need fixing.”

As luck or fate would have it, I did find a home for my manuscript, and after what had seemed, to me, a long and torturous journey to turn “Run to the Light” into a real book, my publisher chose the week of the 2018 Novant Health Charlotte Marathon to release it. The Charlotte Marathon, previously known as the Thunder Road Marathon, was where my sister and I had first crossed the finish line as blind runners. I knew that I had to try to recapture the magic of my 2013 race.

Meanwhile, Taylor continued to get sicker, and I wondered how much longer she’d live. When I wrote the epilogue of “Run to the Light” in January 2018, I admitted that I wasn’t sure she’d survive till the book’s publication. And throughout this year, every holiday we celebrated together became another mark on the calendar – a poignant reminder of how my sister bucked the odds.

Along the way, I faced a big life change of my own. The same week I wrote the epilogue, on an unusually snowy night in my pocket of the Carolinas, I learned I was pregnant with my first child. Still, I resolved to run 13.1 miles blindfolded for my sister in November, approximately six weeks after giving birth.

I wouldn’t have to do it alone. In addition to my friend, Andrew, who agreed to serve as my guide again, more than 100 people signed up to run or walk various race distances wearing purple for Taylor. Early on, I thought maybe we could field the biggest team at Charlotte’s biggest race event. I pulled a volunteer committee together to plan race week events and social media and PR strategies, hoping Taylor’s Tale could benefit from my sister’s amazing running story once again.

Then, the sky fell. Right after Labor Day, Taylor was admitted to the hospital with intractable seizures. For the next three weeks, she clung to life with the same spunk I’d seen since she was a fiery toddler who always figured out a way to win, even if her opponent had 40 inches and 100 pounds on her.

But Batten disease always comes out on top, in the end. Six days after my son Jack was born, Taylor took her last breath in an inpatient hospice unit, separated from the labor and delivery room where I’d brought a new life into the world by just a few floors.

My family, of course, could have canceled our marathon plans. We were exhausted and heartbroken, stripped bare before the trees lost their first leaves of fall.

But we didn’t. Instead, we did as Taylor would have done. And this past Saturday, Taylor’s Tale turned Charlotte purple for her. I ran the half marathon blindfolded, crossing the finish line in 2:01. I could credit training that started less than two weeks after Jack and I came home from the hospital, but I know better. No – something else willed my legs and lungs and heart to work like I hadn’t just given birth. Something else showed me the way to the end of a 13.1-mile course I couldn’t see.

Maybe it was my friend, Andrew, the perfect guide. Maybe it was the skills we’d honed in 2013, even more crucial considering we didn’t train together – at all – for this race. Maybe it was my friend, Alyson, my brother, Stephen (running his first half marathon), Steve Gray, whose gene therapy research Taylor’s Tale funded, or runners from Abeona Therapeutics, the company that licensed Steve’s work and will begin treating children like Taylor in an upcoming clinical trial. Together, this group formed sort of a bubble to protect me from falls in the stampede that took over Charlotte’s streets for a few fleeting hours on a picture-perfect fall morning.

untethered running

Maybe, above all else, it was the ghost of an angel – the same angel whose legacy outweighs any physical feat, blindfolded or not – that carried our team to the finish line on Saturday. When I took off the blindfold at the finish line, I hugged my guide and my mother and my newborn son, wrapped in a moment that felt matchless yet strangely familiar. And that’s when I knew:

This was magic.

finish line with Jack