Margarida Maia, PhD, science writer —

People carrying fewer Huntington’s disease-causing CAG repeats in the HTT gene — who traditionally are thought to have milder disease — show similar cognitive deficits to those with more CAG repeats, a study found. However, patients with fewer repeats are less likely to show Huntington’s characteristic involuntary muscle contractions,…

Huntington’s disease could develop at earlier ages in people using calcium channel blockers to control hypertension, a study that looked into genes encoding targets of blood pressure-lowering medications reported. Findings may have important implications for managing high blood pressure in people at risk of Huntington’s, identified before disease…

A computer-based test called SelfCog, which tests various cognitive functions in a standardized manner, yielded promising results in assessing cognitive decline in people with early-stage Huntington’s disease, a study has found. SelfCog demonstrated sensitivity to detect cognitive decline over a one-year follow-up, outperforming traditional cognitive assessments, and showed associations…

Sarah Tabrizi, MD, PhD, a researcher at the University College London (UCL) in the U.K., is the winner of this year’s Lund University Arvid Carlsson Award for her work in understanding Huntington’s disease and developing treatments to slow or stop its progression. The prize is given to researchers who…

Subtle changes in speech are present before obvious symptoms of Huntington’s disease appear, and could potentially be a quantitative biomarker for the neurodegenerative disorder, a small study found. The changes in speaking identified among Huntington’s patients were linked to age and an individual’s number of disease-causing CAG repeats —…

The Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) is awarding 56 grants totaling more than $2 million to expand its Centers of Excellence network, which is dedicated to providing comprehensive care to people with Huntington’s disease. Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire joins last year’s total of 55 grant-funded Centers of Excellence. The…

The first two patients in Europe have been dosed in uniQure’s Phase 1/2 clinical trial investigating AMT-130, a one-time investigational gene therapy for Huntington’s disease. The trial is underway in Poland, where it is still open for enrollment, and is expected to expand to other sites in the…

The Huntington Study Group is seeking 30 patients to join KINECT-HD2, an open-label study of oral valbenazine capsules for chorea, or jerky involuntary movements, in Huntington’s disease, a press release states. KINECT-HD2 is an extension study of KINECT-HD (NCT04102579), a Phase 3 clinical trial that tested…

NeuExcell Therapeutics has entered into a research deal with Spark Therapeutics to advance the development of a safe and effective neuroregenerative gene therapy for Huntington’s disease. Under the terms of the agreement, Spark, a member of the Roche Group, will have access to NeuExcell’s gene therapy platform…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation to Vico Therapeutics’ VO659, an investigational antisense oligonucleotide gene-silencing therapy for Huntington’s disease. “We are delighted that FDA has granted this orphan-drug designation,” Rupert Sandbrink, MD, PhD, chief medical officer of VICO, said in a…