8 May 2024
The HD Centre in Wales launches
Our co-director, Prof Anne Rosser, with Dr Tom Massey, Dr Cheney Drew, and Dr Duncan McLauchlan, have created the HD Centre in Wales, a network of HD researchers across Wales. The network kicked off with a launch day.
The day started with an introduction from Prof Anne Rosser followed by talks from Dr Tom Massey, Dr Gaynor Smith and Prof Pete Holmans on genetic modifiers of Huntington's Disease.
Followed by talks on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of Huntington's Disease by Prof Vincent Dion, Dr Sarah Langley, Prof Meng Li, Prof Bill Griffiths, and Dr Mike Taylor.
Dr Claudia Metzler- Baddeley, Dr Duncan McLauchlan, Prof Jon Erichsen and one of our own, Dr Mariah Lelos, gave great talks on the brain networks in Huntington's disease.
We then heard from Dr Cheney Drew, Dr Una Jones and Dr Katy Hamana about the impact of Huntington's Disease on patients and families.
Over lunch, there was a poster presentation with posters from across the spectrum of Huntington's Disease research. Including many early career researchers, this was a great opportunity for them to speak to others about their research. Some of our ECRs presented their work!
Prof Anne Rosser spoke again, followed by Dr Susruta Manivannan, Dr Jane Davies and Dr Olivia Handley discussing clinical research and therapeutic development.
To finish the day, we heard from Harold Haas, who has experienced Huntington's Disease first-hand through his family members. He spoke to us about being involved in some of the early testing for the mutation and his journey to finding out he was negative. We were inspired when he showed us the letter he received over 20 years ago confirming his results.