Biomarker for Huntington’s identified
Huntington’s disease, a devastating genetic disorder that causes degeneration of nerve cells in the brain, affects more than 15,000 Americans, and at least 150,000 are at risk of developing the disease. There is no known cure or treatment for the disease — which starts with changes in mood, judgment, memory, and other cognitive functions and inevitably leads to increasing physical disability, dementia, and death. In a new research paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition online, Harvard-affiliated researchers identify a transcriptional biomarker that may assist in the monitoring of disease activity and in the evaluation of new medications. The research, which is a collaboration between the laboratory of Clemens Scherzer in the Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and the laboratory of Steven Hersch at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), describes the discovery and validation...