ASOs therapies have dominated the news recently, but did you know that there are many additional strategies being developed in HD labs for huntingtin lowering? PhD student Julia Alterman will give a webinar next week about a method for interfering with huntingtin RNA and how she is testing it in animal models of HD. Julia is working in Dr. Anastasia Khvorova’s lab in the RNA Therapeutics Institute at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She gave a great talk at the HDF conference this year, and she’ll share this promising work with the community in next week’s HDSA webinar. Please register at the link below!
Title: RNAi-based huntingtin lowering in the central nervous system: a new potential HD therapeutic
Date and Time: Thursday, October 18th, 12 – 1 pm Eastern time
Registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Gx7N0srDQNKyP76J1Sd8sA
Youth survey: where do you find information about HD?
If you’re 18-25 years old, consider participating in a 20-30 minute online survey to help researchers understand more about where people find information about HD. Colby Chase, a graduate student in Genetic Counseling at the University of Michigan, is working on a research project exploring the experience of young people growing up and living at risk for Huntington disease. Her team is hoping to learn more about young people aged 18-25 who have a parent or grandparent affected with or at-risk for HD. The survey asks about questions surrounding HD, where people look for information, and what is recommended for others learning about HD. HDSA staff have reviewed this university-approved study, and responses are anonymous.
Participants will have the opportunity to be entered into a drawing for one of 10 $25 gift cards.
To begin the survey, click here.
Feature article about HDSA Berman-Topper Fellow
Dr. Sarah Hernandez, a researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Leslie Thompson at the University of California Irvine, won the 2017 HDSA Berman-Topper Career Development Fellowship for her work on harnessing the extracellular matrix for HD therapeutics. She was recently featured in a Worcester Polytechnic Institute article about her family’s history of Huntington’s disease and how it drove her to become an HD scientist. Check it out here.
