Genetic modifier for Huntington’s disease progression identified

A team led by UCL and Cardiff University researchers has developed a novel measure of disease progression for Huntington's disease, which enabled them to identify a genetic modifier associated with how rapidly the disease progresses. 'We've identified a gene that could be a target for treating Huntington's disease. While there's currently no cure for the disease, we're hopeful that our finding could be a step towards life-extending treatments,' said Dr Davina Hensman Moss (UCL Huntington's Disease Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology), one of the lead authors of the Lancet Neurology study. Huntington's disease (HD) is a fatal neurological disease caused by a genetic mutation. Larger mutations are linked to rapidly progressing disease, but that does not account for all aspects of disease progression. Understanding factors which change the rate of disease progression can help direct drug development and therapies. The research team used the high quality phenotypic data from the intensively studied TRACK-HD cohort of people with the HD gene mutation.