Research Spotlight

Inaugural (2007) Huntington Disease Clinical Research Symposium Program - Friday, March 21, 2008
The Scientific Program for the Inaugural Huntington Disease Clinical Research Symposium, held on December 1, 2007, in Boston, Massachusetts, is available online. read more...

Inaugural (2007) Huntington Disease Clinical Research Symposium Summary-Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Inaugural Huntington Disease Clinical Research Symposium, held on December 1, 2007, in Boston, Massachusetts, opened with a frank, endearing, and inspiring talk by Katharine (Katie) Moser, a young, healthy woman who learned less than three years ago that she has the gene for Huntington Disease (HD). Moser’s comments on the unmet clinical research needs from the perspective of the pre-manifest population framed the remaining presentations about the wide-ranging efforts currently underway to find new treatments for HD.

Review of Published Article "Predictors of Diagnosis of Huntington Disease" - Monday, January 21, 2008
As the search intensifies for treatments that might delay the onset or slow the progression of Huntington’s disease (HD), identifying the disease early has also become more important than ever. Currently, a person is diagnosed with HD when he or she shows unmistakable motor signs, such as chorea. However, recent research has demonstrated that the brain is affected many years before symptoms appear.

Review of Published Article "Tetrabenazine as Antichorea Therapy in Huntington Disease" - Friday, October 26, 2007

Update: December 8, 2007. An FDA advisory committee unanimously recommended approval of tetrabenazine for the treatment of chorea associated with HD. The FDA still must approve the drug, but the committee's unanimous recommendation makes this approval more likely. If approved, tetrabenazine will then become the first drug for HD approved in the United States.

Tetrabenazine has been widely used in Europe and Canada to treat chorea in people with Huntington’s disease (HD). However, it had never gone through the rigorous testing required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be approved for use in the United States. Clinical experience suggests that tetrabenazine is associated with fewer troublesome side effects than other drugs, called neuroleptics, that are used to treat chorea.&

Review of Published Article "At Risk for Huntington Disease: The PHAROS Cohort Enrolled" - Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Among the 150,000 or so individuals in the United States and Canada who are at risk for Huntington disease (HD), only a fraction have chosen to undergo genetic testing that would tell them if, in fact, they have the HD gene. Since people who have decided against genetic testing make up the majority of people at risk for HD, a group of Huntington Study Group investigators reasoned that studying this group might provide critical information about the earliest indicators of the disease.

Review of Published Article "Preparing for Preventive Clinical Trials: The Predict-HD Study" - Wednesday, June 20, 2007
In the first published report emanating from The Predict-HD study, several markers of HD were shown to appear long before an individual would expect to be diagnosed. More importantly, since the markers varied in measurable and predictable ways prior to diagnosis, they may prove useful in upcoming clinical trials to determine whether experimental treatments can slow the progression of the disease.