Neuronal reprogramming to slow or delay Huntington's disease

Josep M. Canals

Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Huntington's disease is the most common hereditary neurodegenerative disorder. It typically appears between 30 to 40 years of age, when the deterioration of certain neurons leads to motor dysfunction, causing patients to experience involuntary movements in the form of chorea, which become progressively accentuated.

Little is still known about the neuronal alterations that appear during the brain’s development, specifically, in the region of the brain nucleus known as striatum, and how they are subsequently translated into the pathology in adult age.

The project analyses the role of neuronal precursor cells which, during development, differentiate into striatal neurons. The goal is to determine their impact on the disease and halt or delay their appearance through in vivo reprogramming of the damaged neuronal circuits.

• Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), Vienna BioCenter, Austria

• Stem Cell Center, Lund University, Sweden

• Cardiff University, United Kingdom

• European Huntington’s Disease Network

In vivo reprogramming to rescue alterations in Huntington’s disease

€994,890