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Scientists at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital were able — for the first time — to track epigenetic factors, or non-genetic influences on gene activity, linked to Huntington’s disease in the brains of living humans. The study, “Insights into neuroepigenetics through human histone…

About 300 international scientists and industry leaders recently gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the Hereditary Disease Foundation‘s 10th biennial “Milton Wexler Celebration of Life” Symposium, to promote collaborations that can take scientific findings from the laboratory into the lives of patients as treatments. One of the highlights of the meeting,…

In recent years, Huntington’s disease has joined the group of neurodegenerative diseases characterized by aggregation of the tau protein in fibrillary tangles inside neurons. An invention by Prana Biotechnology might give new insights into the disease processes and allow for new drug candidates to be screened for activity against the…

The accumulation of toxic protein aggregates within nerve cells are a hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, or Huntington’s disease. Now, researchers at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have identified a protein called UBQLN2 that protects against such diseases by eliminating those protein aggregates. The study, “…

Stopping the protein TDP-43 from accumulating in mitochondria may help prevent neurodegeneration in a variety of diseases, according to researchers at the Case Western Reserve University. In a recent study, they demonstrated that once inside mitochondria, TDP-43 shuts down its ability to produce energy, leading to nerve cell death. The study, “The…

Vaccinex‘s VX15, a novel clinical stage monoclonal antibody for Huntington’s disease (HD) treatment, has been granted Fast Track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). VX15 blocks the activity of semaphorin 4D (SEMA4D), a molecule that is thought to promote chronic inflammatory responses in the brain. “We are very pleased…

Huntexil (pridopidine), a drug candidate intended to treat Huntington’s disease movement symptoms, might have a more intricate way of acting on the brain than researchers previously believed — by ramping up activity in molecular pathways known to promote neuroprotection. In the study “Pridopidine activates neuroprotective pathways impaired in…

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found that patients with Huntington’s disease have a deficient system controlling the amount of the amino acid cysteine that goes inside cells — a deficit linked to oxidative stress. The authors of the study, “Transcriptional control of amino acid homeostasis is disrupted…

What do people with Huntington’s disease, obsessive compulsive disorder, and ADHD have in common? The answer is the basal ganglia, a brain region that controls movement. Recent research suggests a new model for how this region initiates and sustains movement, showing that two pathways, previously thought mutually exclusive, can actually…

Scientists at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University have shown that transgenic monkeys for Huntington’s disease exhibit early emergent symptoms, like humans with the disease, which bolsters the idea that monkeys could be effective animal models for developing therapies. The study, “Increased irritability, anxiety, and immune reactivity in transgenic Huntington’s disease monkeys,”…