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ORPHA:89844

Lissencephaly syndrome, Norman-Roberts type

low confidenceSubtype of disorder

Also known as: Microlissencephaly type A

Publications

9,443

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,214

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

RELN

Definitive

Readiness

3/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Lissencephaly syndrome, Norman-Roberts type is characterised by the association of lissencephaly type I with craniofacial anomalies (severe microcephaly, a low sloping forehead, a broad and prominent nasal bridge and widely set eyes) and postnatal growth retardation.

How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (4)

Norman-Roberts syndrome · lissencephaly 2 · lissencephaly 2 (Norman-Roberts type) · lissencephaly syndrome, Norman-Roberts type

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

3/6 stages with a signal

No matched interventional trial; the gene is known and literature exists — preclinical or natural-history work may still be the practical next step.

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Definitive — RELN

  2. LiteraturePresent

    9,443 matched papers (5,571 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    47 HPO annotations (e.g. 4-layered lissencephaly; Primary microcephaly; Microretrognathia) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationNot found

    No FDA or EMA orphan-drug designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name Source

  6. Interventional trialNot found

    No matched interventional trial under our ClinicalTrials.gov rules

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Yes — we know a specific gene responsible (RELN).

GenCC classification: Definitive.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

47

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0009760

  • 4-layered lissencephaly
  • Primary microcephaly
  • Microretrognathia
  • Seizure
  • Feeding difficulties

Showing 5 of 47 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

No designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name on the FDA OOPD mirror or EMA orphan register. Absence here is not proof that none exists under another wording.

Open Targets candidates

No drugs or clinical candidates returned for this Mondo ID on Open Targets.

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

9,443

9,443 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

9,443 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

5,571 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 582 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,214

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

No interventional trial matched this name; these authors publish on it in the sampled literature — a practical starting point for contact.

  1. 01
    Chen L4 papers · 2025

    Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100730, China. pumch9887@163.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Chen Y4 papers · 2025

    The First Clinical Medical College of Lanzhou University, 730000 Lanzhou, Gansu, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Zhang H4 papers · 2026

    Artemisinin Research Center, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; (H.D.); (L.Z.); (H.S.); (H.Z.); (S.Y.); (J.S.)

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Ahmad W3 papers · 2025

    Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Arima D3 papers · 2021

    Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Tsukuba Memorial Hospital, 1187-299 Kaname, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 300-2622, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Badulescu OV3 papers · 2025

    Department of Pathophysiology, Morpho-Functional Sciences (II), Faculty of Medicine, "Grigore T. Popa" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 700115 Iasi, Romania.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Caviglia H3 papers · 2021

    Department of Orthopaedic and Traumatology, General Hospital Dr. Juan A. Fernández, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Nishi S3 papers · 2021

    Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Tsukuba Memorial Hospital, 1187-299 Kaname, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 300-2622, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Song J3 papers · 2026

    Artemisinin Research Center, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; (H.D.); (L.Z.); (H.S.); (H.Z.); (S.Y.); (J.S.)

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Suematsu Y3 papers · 2021

    Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Tsukuba Memorial Hospital, 1187-299 Kaname, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 300-2622, Japan. suematus@tf7.so-net.ne.jp.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

0

interventional trials for this specific condition

No interventional trial testing a treatment matched this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov (observational studies and pan-disease registries are listed separately when present).

Data as of 11 September 2026 · last trial check 11 September 2026

No matched interventional trials. This is true for 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator (5501 of 7126). Here are the researchers publishing on it.

low confidence · 38.6th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

No interventional trial testing a treatment was found for this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov.

See who's working on it — people publishing on this disease are often the practical next contact when no trial is listed.

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 0 · after dedupe 0 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 0 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Lissencephaly syndrome, Norman-Roberts type — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

("Lissencephaly syndrome, Norman-Roberts type" OR "Microlissencephaly type A" OR "Norman-Roberts syndrome" OR "lissencephaly 2" OR "lissencephaly 2 (Norman-Roberts type)") OR ("RELN" OR "RELN syndrome" OR "RELN-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Lissencephaly syndrome, Norman-Roberts type" OR "Microlissencephaly type A" OR "Norman-Roberts syndrome" OR "lissencephaly 2" OR "lissencephaly 2 (Norman-Roberts type)"

Study-type breakdown: 0 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (9443) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T03:27:47.926Z