A breakthrough against Huntington's Disease

Gene Therapy Rewrites an Inexorable Diagnosis

My experience and exposure to Huntington’s Disease pretty much started with the Chris character in ZeroZeroZero. Chris’ diagnosis is revealed early and the horrible progress of the disease grows and continues to impair him as the season progresses.

In reality as in on that show, it’s a horrible disease which affects 30,000 people in the United States alone. Huntington’s emanates from a mutation in a gene called HTT, which encodes a protein called huntingtin that’s key to both the disease name and the negative impacts on the patient’s neuronic health. This mutation creates a toxic form of huntingtin, and begins to surface in a person’s 30s or 40s first with tics and balance problems, then progressing to cognitive decline and trouble speaking and swallowing, and is ultimately fatal.

So, we have a breakthrough, although one with some caveats, this sample size is small and the findings aren’t peer-reviewed yet. The treatment will also be expensive.

But it is good news, and we get into it after the paywall.