Sarah Tabrizi: Huntington’s hero
This neurologist is leading clinical efforts to treat the devastating brain disease.
On a video call in early September, Sarah Tabrizi first saw the data that she and other researchers studying Huntington’s disease had been chasing for decades: compelling evidence that a gene-targeting therapy could slow the relentless progression of the neurodegenerative brain disorder.
Before these results, “I was beginning to get a little bit worried that maybe, by the time people develop symptoms, that it was going to be too late to treat”, says Tabrizi, a neurologist who directs the Huntington’s Disease Centre at University College London. But here was powerful validation that the window for treating the rare, hereditary condition remains open — offering a chance for meaningful, disease-modifying interventions.
“It’s a giant step forward,” says Tabrizi, who was the trial’s lead scientific adviser. “The dial has been shifted.”
Continue reading at Nature.
