Using Stem Cells and Genetic Messages to Transform HD Research

Andrew S. Yoo, PhD
Professor
Department of Developmental Biology
Washington University School of Medicine

Dr. Yoo is a world-leader in stem cell research and has developed a direct conversion protocol that turns skin cells directly into brain cells. This protocol is used by labs across the globe that study HD. The advantage of this protocol is that it directly converts skin cells to brain cells, negating the need to first go through a stem cell step. Stems cells are biologically very young, and thus lose their biological age and molecular marks associated with that age. Directly converting skin cells to brain cells preserves cellular age along with other disease features disguised by youth. Such a system pulls out degenerative features of the cells, making it a more robust system with which to study diseases like HD that are brought on by age.

Osama Al Dalahmah, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
New York-Presbyterian Hospital

Dr. Al Dalahmah is a neuropathologist and a renowned expert in brain structures and the effects of HD within the central nervous system. Trained under the tutelage of Dr. Jean Paul Vonsattel, the creator of the grading system that has been used for over 40 years to categorize HD brains, Dr. Al Dalahmah is a talented researcher focused on dissecting the molecular effects of HD with direct access to the New York Brain Bank at Columbia University, one of the largest repositories in the world of human HD brains.