English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
Esperanto
French
German
Greek
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Urdu
This is the first in the Hereditary Disease Foundation Spotlight Research webinar series featuring scientists discussing their work to identify treatments and cures for Huntington’s disease and other brain disorders.
Dr. Ai Yamamoto made a stunning entrance into the field of Huntington’s disease research while she was still a graduate student. She demonstrated that HD might be reversible — something no one had shown up to that point. Dr. Yamamoto’s work led her and her research team to a fascinating protein called Alfy which has connections to the age at which Huntington’s disease symptoms start to emerge. Dr. Yamamoto will talk about how Alfy may serve as a basis for a radically new treatment for Huntington’s disease — and perhaps for other brain disorders.
About the Hereditary Disease Foundation
The Hereditary Disease Foundation (HDF) facilitates collaborative and innovative scientific research to further the understanding of Huntington’s disease, a genetic disorder that strikes in early- to mid-adulthood, destroying brain cells and causing irreversible decline in control of mood, memory, and movement. As a disease caused by a mistake on a single gene, Huntington’s disease serves as an ideal model for understanding other brain disorders. Research organized by the Foundation led to the discovery of the genetic marker for Huntington’s disease in 1983. HDF organized and funded a decade-long international collaboration of over 100 scientists who discovered the gene that causes Huntington’s in 1993. This work played an important role in the development of the Human Genome Project.
