SCIEnTIFIC ADvISoRy BoARD JuDITH FRyDMAn, PHD

Donald Kennedy Chair in Humanities and Sciences

Professor, Departments of Biology and Genetics

Stanford University

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

National Academy of Science

Dr. Judith Frydman grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Buenos Aires. She carried out her postdoctoral training at the Sloan Kettering Institute in New York.

Dr. Frydman’s research focuses on understanding how proteins fold in cells. The Frydman lab uses a multidisciplinary approach to address fundamental questions about molecular chaperones (proteins that aid in folding), protein folding and degradation. In addition to basic mechanistic principles, she and her team aim to define how impairment of protein folding and quality control are linked to disease, including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s disease. She examines whether reengineering chaperone networks can provide therapeutic strategies.

MICHELLE gRAy, PHD

Associate Professor

Jarman F. Lowder Endowed Professor in Neuroscience

Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics

Department of Neurology

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Michelle Gray completed her doctoral training in developmental neurobiology at Ohio State University. During her postdoctoral training with Scientific Advisory Board member Dr. X. William Yang at the University of California, Los Angeles, she helped develop a BACHD mouse model (Bacterial Artificial Chromosome human mutant Huntingtin).

Dr. Gray is now the Dixon Scholar in Neuroscience and a member of the Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics at University of Alabama at Birmingham where her lab has a specific interest in the role of mutant Huntingtinexpressing astrocytes in the pathogenesis of Huntington’s disease. Her lab has demonstrated that astrocytes are key contributors to the progression of Huntington’s disease-like phenotypes using the conditional BACHD model as well as a differential role of gliotransmission on behavior using this model. A current focus of the lab is understanding the astrocyte and interneuron interactions in the striatum that contribute to the pathogenesis of Huntington’s disease.

MyRIAM HEIMAn, PHD

Latham Career Development Chair Associate Professor

Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Investigator, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory

Dr. Myriam Heiman uses HD patient tissue as well as mouse and cell models of HD to understand why some cells are more or less vulnerable to the mutant HD gene. She uses knowledge of these intrinsic differences to identify new therapeutic targets for HD. Dr. Heiman has pioneered the use of in vivo genetic screening in the mammalian brain, as well as the use of novel single-cell and cell type-specific transcriptional profiling tools to study HD. Her work has recently pointed to the importance of neuronal innate immune activation and cell type-specific mitochondrial dysfunction in HD pathogenesis. She is the recipient of several awards, including an Early Career Investigators Innovation Award from the Bumpus Foundation, a EUREKA grant from the National Institutes of Health and awards for excellence in graduate mentoring and undergraduate teaching from MIT.

H. RoBERT HoRvITz, PHD

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Professor of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nobel Laureate

National Academy of Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

National Academy of Medicine

Dr. Robert Horvitz, 2002 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, is interested in how genes control animal development and behavior and affect human health. Dr. Horvitz has made seminal discoveries concerning the genetic regulation of signal transduction and programmed cell death. By using the experimentally tractable roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as an experimental organism, he and his team have identified key genes involved in cell lineage, cell fate, cell signaling and programmed cell death as well as in nervous system development and function. They have identified and analyzed molecular and cellular pathways responsible for these and other important biological processes. Their goals are to understand fundamental aspects of biology and to provide mechanistic insights into human diseases, including cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.