CURE Epilepsy Discovery

As a young researcher in 2010, Dr. Mingshan Xue met Caroline DeLuca and her mother, Elizabeth. During their 20-minute talk, Caroline had three seizures — unfortunately frequent occurrences due to a mutation in one of her STXBP1 genes.


It made a lasting impression. When Xue established his lab in 2014 at Baylor College of Medicine to study the visual cortex, he established a side project investigating STXBP1, a mutation of which is very rare but is nonetheless considered one of the most common genetic causes of epilepsy.


“The only reason we started working on this is simply because I had met [Caroline], and I wanted to help,” Xue says. “I just thought I would do a small project to see what we could do about it.”

Ten years later that humble side project, with the help of funding from CURE Epilepsy, has developed into a potential curative treatment on the cusp of human clinical trials. Xue is now partnering with Capsida, a biotech company, to develop a gene therapy, CAP-002, that will supplement STXBP1 protein in the brain.

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Our mission is to fund breakthrough research that will transform the lives of people with epilepsy as we lead the search for a cure. CURE Epilepsy is a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our tax identification number is 36-4253176.