Luxembourg’s Prince Frederik Dies at 22 from Rare Genetic Condition: ‘He Is My Superhero,’ Says Dad Prince Robert

Posted by kingbobbyjoe

9 comments

  3. For folks wondering where on the family tree this gentleman was, he was one of the great-grandchildren of Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg. His grandfather was the youngest son of Grand Duchess Charlotte.

  4. Jesus it sounds like this poor baby was slowly dying from birth. POLG Mitochondrial Disease “is a genetic mitochondrial disorder that robs the body’s cells of energy, in turn causing progressive multiple organ (brain, nerves, liver, intestines, muscles, swallowing and ocular function, etc.) dysfunction and failure.”

    His organs were slowly shutting down, which must have been incredibly painful. And it seems like he knew he was dead.

    22 is far too young. His birthday is March 18, dying so soon before must be extra painful (and his sister Charlotte was born on the 20, she’s about to be 30 and just got married in January). Hopefully he wasn’t in too much pain and didn’t suffer in his last days.

  5. So terribly sad. The tribute of his father was very moving.

  6. I saw the royal family of Luxembourg post about the POLG Foundation a few days ago – so sad to hear that Frederik has passed. Here’s the [direct link to the letter on the website](https://polgfoundation.org/frederik/) that also outlines some of the work they are doing. I had never heard of this disease before so good for them.

    >Though recently created, the nascent The POLG Foundation, in only 3 short years, has accomplished so very much:

    >We have created our Toolbox. From Frederik’s DNA, we have generated sequences and induced pluripotent stem cells or IPSCs (https://neurocenter-unige.ch/research-groups/denis-jabaudon/ and transgenic mice (Jackson Laboratories https://www.jax.org/, University of Padua https://cesne.biologia.unipd.it/research-groups/carlo-viscomi/). These precious tools are available for researchers globally to help accelerate development of specific treatments and cures for POLG disease.

    >We have funded four major research projects, totaling over $3.6 million USD. These projects have resulted in publications in peer-reviewed, high-impact journals. Since the Foundation’s inception, we have seen a substantial increase in POLG research activity. Read those articles here.

    >Working with other Mitochondrial Advocacy Organizations (e.g. Lily Foundation, UMDF and Mito Foundation of Australia) we have partnered on development of a clinical trials readiness tool called Casimir for Digital Video Assessments (DVA). We also have embarked on a Project Butterfly at Columbia University for studying invaluable post-mortem tissues from 2 POLG families who have made such courageous donations to advance POLG research.

    >In 2025, we are launching the first ever international prospective POLG Natural History study*2 to pull the POLG community together and enable key clinical data collection to help inform better clinical care and efficient clinical trial design for drug development. We anticipate that this body of work and datasets will be considered the ultimate tool in our Toolbox for the broader global biomedical community.

Comments are closed.