Human Biology Project, HDBuzz on Help4HD, HD Research Pipeline

Now Accepting LOIs for HDSA’s HD Human Biology Project Fellowship 

HDSA is proud to announce the 2023 Request for Proposals for the HD Human Biology Project. Despite the identification of the gene responsible for Huntington’s disease (HD) 30 years ago this month, there is not yet an effective treatment to slow or stop the progression of symptoms. While remarkable advances in HD biology have been made using animal models, the development of effective therapies requires research in humans. As a result, HDSA has adopted a patient-centric research strategy to push the HD field closer to slowing progression and onset. HDSA’s HD Human Biology Project is the cornerstone of this strategy, with the aim of better understanding the biology of Huntington’s disease as it occurs in humans. This one-to-two-year funding mechanism is open to researchers around the world, and provides up to $75,000 of annual support for research conducted in collaboration with HD clinics across the globe. To learn more, click here. 

Help4HD and the Editors of HDBuzz on Genetic Modifiers of HD 

If someone has an elevated number of CAG repeats in a copy of their Huntington gene, they will get Huntington’s disease. However, two people with the same CAG repeat length will not necessarily develop HD symptoms at the same time. Over time, scientists have found that there are other genetic variations that can affect onset of the disease—these are called genetic modifiers of HD. Last week, the editors of HDBuzz, including HDSA’s Assistant Director of Research and Patient Engagement, Dr. Leora Fox, joined host Lauren Holder on the Help4HD podcast to talk about genetic modifiers of HD, and how these factors may be useful to develop treatments and therapies for HD. To listen to the full episode, click here.  

HD Research in the Pipeline 

There are dozens of pharmaceutical companies and academic researchers who are exploring ways to treat and cure HD. A research “pipeline” is the process of creating, testing, and approving a new drug for use in humans. Although the research pipeline appears to proceed smoothly from pre-clinical research studying basic biology of HD to clinical trials that test interventions for the disease, in practice drug development is much more dynamic. There are numerous companies studying drugs in parallel and fine-tuning their interventions, treatment protocol, trial design, and more to try and learn as much as they can about HD and potential ways to treat it. All of these moving parts can be difficult to keep track of, but HDSA keeps an up-to-date clinical research pipeline to map out the landscape of research today. Although it’s always changing, this pipeline is a great tool to learn about what drugs are currently being studied in HD, and what to look forward to down the road. Click here to learn more.