In late 2020 Nora and Christoph's 7-month old daughter was diagnosed with a rare gene mutation in AGO2. 21 cases were known worldwide at the time, among them Antje's son who was the first to be diagnosed.
Little was known about this novel disease, the prognosis given was devastating and we were told that there was nothing that could be done. So together we set out to connect families and do the impossible to enable our children to develop like other children. AGO Alliance was born.
A world where every person with Argonaute syndrome can thrive
AGO Alliance is dedicated to improving the lives of children affected by Argonaute Syndromes (AGO1 & AGO2 genes) by accelerating the development of therapeutics, bringing families together, and providing education.
Finding and funding paths to treatment. Because many rare diseases affect so few patients, pharmaceutical companies neglect to fund early translational research, and today it sadly is up to parents to advance science & medicine.
Connecting families. Because Argonaute syndromes are both rare and new, patients are isolated and little is known about caring for our children. Uniting families and identifying more patients is vital.
Raising awareness. Because Argonaute syndromes are poorly known, we need to spread awareness and make high-quality, reviewed information available.
We are a non-profit organisation. We are registered as a tax-exempt association in Switzerland (J0002264973, CH-020-6002909-9) and are a partner of Transnational Giving Europe and the Rare Village Foundation. Our articles (original signed in German). Our annual reports 2023, 2022, and 2021.
Mother of an affected child. PhD in Biomedical Engineering from EPFL, visiting researcher at Stanford University, now R&D Manager at Swiss Reinsurance Company. Based in Switzerland.
Mother of a son with AGO1. PhD in Cell Biology. Manager in clinical trials at AstraZeneca. Based in Poland
Mother of patient #1 and initiator of our Facebook parent support group. InnovationX Venture Builder at Airbus.
Mother of a daughter with AGO1. BSc in Health Science. Administrative Associate at Stanford University.
Mother of Uxue, a girl affected by AGO1, and founder of partner organisation Sindromes AGO
Freelance copywriter, editor and social media specialist from Poland
Uncle of an affected child. Responsible for design and website development. Currently freelancing Web & Multimedia Specialist at vanilla.ch.
Freelance web support and media designer from Ukraine.
Please reach out if you wish to support us with any of the below:
Communications: Establish an active public presence on social media (Facebook page, Instagram). Craft newsletters for our community
Patient registry champion: Support or drive the creation of our own patient registry
Community leader: Be the contact for patient families in your country. Ideally, establish a local non-profit organization with tax-exempt status
First to document Lessel-Kreienkamp syndrome (AGO2 gene) in Lessel et al. 2020
First to document Lessel-Kreienkamp syndrome (AGO2 gene) in Lessel et al. 2020. Bio
Leading researcher on RNA-guided gene silencing and AGO2. Bio
Led an international study that described the AGO1-related syndrome (Schalk et al. 2021)
We are a part of the European Patient Advocacy Group (ePAG) of the European Reference Network Ithaca for Rare Malformation Syndromes, Intellectual and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders
A coalition of more than 750 rare disease organization to drive better outcomes for the rare disease community. globalgenes.org
A UK charity that brings rare disease groups together. We are part of the 21/22 mentoring cohort. www.rarebeacon.org
An initiative for tax-effective cross-border donations in Europe
Our fiscal sponsor in the US
