Funding Brilliant Science
The Hereditary Disease Foundation is excited to announce new grants and postdoctoral fellowships to eleven scientists from around the world focused on finding treatments and cures for Huntington’s disease. We’ll bring you more details about their research projects in the months ahead.
Funded Recipients, Institutions, and Project Titles:
Swati Balakrishnan, PhD
Mentor: Cheryl Arrowsmith, PhD; Rachel Harding, PhD
Institution: University of Toronto, Canada
Project Title: Investigating the role of a protein variant in damage to genetic material
Gabriel Balmus, PhD
Institution: University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Project Title: Discovery of therapeutic targets that can ameliorate Huntington’s disease
Bogdan Bintu, PhD
Institution: University of California, San Diego
Project Title: Imaging the drivers of toxicity in single cells of Huntington’s diseased human brains
Verónica Inés Brito, PhD
Institution: University of Barcelona, Spain
Project Title: Exploring new therapeutic avenues for Huntington’s disease through RNA editing of mutant huntingtin
Rachel Harding, PhD
Institution: University of Toronto, Canada
Project Title: Investigations to study HAP40, partner of the Huntington’s disease protein
David Housman, PhD
Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Project Title: Reversing the repeat expansion in Huntington’s disease with a DNA repair enzyme therapy
Icnelia Huerta Ocampo, MD, PhD
Institution: The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Project Title: Cell responses to gene therapies
Christian Makhoul, PhD
Mentor: Danny Hatters, PhD
Institution: University of Melbourne, Australia
Project Title: Stuck in a loop: how mutant huntingtin could be exacerbating its own mutation
Charlene Smith, PhD
Institution: University of California, Irvine
Project Title: Unraveling the impact of enlarged granules in the powerhouse of the cell in Huntington’s disease
Xiaojing Sui, PhD
Mentor: Richard Morimoto, PhD
Institution: Northwestern University
Project Title: Watching how protein clearance becomes faulty with aging in Huntington’s disease
Ivana Vujkovic Bukvin, PhD
Mentor: Judith Frydman, PhD
Institution: Stanford University
Project Title: Mapping the shape of pathogenic huntingtin during its synthesis on the ribosome