Research Institutions
Part 5

Recent HD Research: Where the Action Is

V. Clinical Trials

Huntington Study Group (HSG)
HSG is a worldwide collaboration of researchers and physicians who work together to study HD. The group has produced numerous studies in the past; current projects include:

• MINO-HD: Aims to determine exactly how the drug minocycline affects HD patients. There is already evidence suggesting that the drug has positive effects, since minocycline prevents the expression of caspase, an enzyme that triggers certain events that lead to cell death.
• Prospective Huntington At Risk Observational Study (PHAROS): Plans to monitor people who are genetically at-risk for developing HD and to try and determine the circumstances under which these people actually go on to develop the disease.
• PREDICT-HD: Compares the brains of HD patients with those who are “at-risk” for HD to find out what triggers the disease. The difference between this study and PHAROS is that PREDICT-HD is recruiting patients who already know that they have the HD allele, whereas volunteers for PHAROS cannot know whether or not they have the mutation.

University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

• Researched the rate at which HD patients' motor skills decline.
• Developed a method to test the reliability of diagnosing HD.

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-G. Schiel 5-01-03

For Further Reading:

1. Albin RL. Fetal striatal transplantation in Huntington’s disease: time for a pause. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry. 2002 Dec; 73(6):612.
2. Bonini NM. Chaperoning brain degradation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dec 10;99 Suppl 4:16407-11.
3. Cattaneo E, Rigamonti D, Zuccato C. The enigma of Huntington’s disease. Scientific American. 2002 Dec; 287(6): 92-7.
4. Kieburtz K. Issues in transplantation for Huntington's disease. Cell Transplantation. 1999 July/Aug;8:456-457.
5. McMurray CT. Huntington’s disease: new hope for therapeutics. Trends in Neuroscience. 2001 Nov;24(11 Suppl):S32-8.
6. Parker M, Lucassen A. Working towards ethical management of genetic testing. Lancet. 2002 Nov 23;360(9346):1685-8.
7. Sharma N, Standaert DG. Inherited movement disorders. Neurological Clinician. 2002 Aug;20(3): 759-78.

Last Modified: 5-09-03

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