On the Shoulders of Giants…

Happy Birthday Woody Guthrie! Perhaps the most famous person to openly suffer from Huntington disease, Woody would have been 99 years old today.  Unfortunately, his life was cut short at age 55 by HD in 1967.  For those too young to know, Woody was an extremely popular, politically active singer-songwriter, best known for the song [...]

Caffeine makes Huntington’s symptoms start earlier?

From HDBuzz Recent news stories suggest that Caffeine might be harmful to people with the Huntington’s disease mutation, while others claim that Cannabis might be helpful. Here’s the lowdown on the science behind these stories, and why we think that a third ‘C’ – Caution – might be the best medicine when it comes to [...]

Mary Lou Nicolson Klimek letter to families and friends

July 5, 2011 Dear Friends, I’m sending this letter to let you know I will be ending my work as the HD Research Coordinator on July 31, 2011. It has been a rewarding 27 years working with you and your families. You have taught me so much as you shared your lives with me. I [...]

A Step Toward Controlling Huntington’s Disease?

From Johns Hopkins Medicine press release: Johns Hopkins researchers identify a potential new way of blocking activity of gene that causes HD Johns Hopkins researchers have identified a natural mechanism that might one day be used to block the expression of the mutated gene known to cause Huntington’s disease. Their experiments offer not an immediate [...]

Website launch gives stem-cell research a boost

By Carolyn Abraham From the Globe and Mail: At first click, and even after several more, a new science website might seem simply to be a slick multi-media hub to school the public on stem-cell biology and research. But joinstemcellcity.com, a creation of the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine launched with great fanfare Wednesday in [...]

2011/07/20 – Boost Your Marvelous Brain

The Alzheimer Society of Calgary is hosting the following information session which may be of interest.  They have a session scheduled for July 20, 2011 and there is no cost to attend. Boost Your Marvelous Brain In this session participants will lean about their marvelous brains and the potential for improving the long term health [...]

BBC accompanies Nancy Wexler to Venezuela

A BBC story and video from Aug 2010. Venezuelan village key in search for Huntington’s cure. The village of Barranquitas in Venezuela has the highest concentration of Huntington’s disease, a devastating brain condition, in the world. The BBC’s Will Grant accompanies a US scientist there as she continues her life’s work to find a cure. [...]

Geneticists’ opposition to direct-to-consumer genetic tests

UK registered charity PHG Foundation (associated with the Public Health Genetics Unit) is advocating against direct-to-consumer genetic tests.  They argue that genetic tests require the involvement of medical professionals to ensure that individuals understand and can act based on the true risks identified by the results.  Read the PHG article here:  http://www.phgfoundation.org/news/8708/ What the article doesn’t [...]