Zachariah McLean, PhD
Research Fellow in Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital , Dr. James Gusella
Unraveling Huntington’s Disease pathogenesis: Investigating Repeat Expansion and Genetic Modifiers Using Advanced Cell Models
Dr. McLean is developing a cell model that closely resembles what happens in the brains of people with HD. Using this, he will test how different genetic factors affect further expansion of the gene that causes HD, which is thought to influence disease progression.
Dipika Gupta, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, New York University Grossman School of Medicine , Dr. Eli Rothenberg
Huntington’s disease etiology and associated mechanisms of repeat expansion
Dr. Gupta’s project will use cutting-edge technologies to visualize unusual structures that arise at the gene that causes HD. She aims to find out whether these unusual structures affect further expansion of the gene, thereby influencing how soon symptoms appear.
Nicholas Caron, PhD
Research Associate, University of British Columbia , Dr. Michael Hayden
Multi-omic biomarker discovery for Huntington disease
Since HD starts damaging the brain years before symptoms appear, early treatment would be our best option. But without symptoms, how do we know how fast someone is progressing or whether a treatment is helping? Dr. Caron’s project will identify new biomarkers—molecules in cerebrospinal fluid—that could track these early changes and measure treatment effectiveness.
