Research is vital in increasing our understanding of HD, improving the quality of life for those impacted by HD, and also providing hope for viable treatments and a cure.
Research continues to progress through the collaboration between you-our community, our invaluable HD researchers and your association. When you participate in research, your contribution not only helps in the study you are involved in, but is often a starting point for new or further research.
Huntington’s Victoria proudly partners with the Huntington’s Research Group of Victoria (HRGV) who are extremely active in HD research. You can view some of the local research below, and find out how you can become involved.
Exploring the gut microbiome and gene-environment interactions in Huntington’s disease: Towards novel therapeutic approaches to delay disease onset and progression
RESEARCH DATE: 01/01/2019
DETAILS:
Our laboratory has extensively contributed to our understanding of gene-environment interactions in Huntington’s disease (HD), including the beneficial effects of cognitive stimulation and physical activity. Environmental enrichment and exercise interventions mimics a stimulating lifestyle, which has been shown to positively impact different neurodegenerative conditions, including HD, where Anthony Hannan and colleagues made the original discoveries. These approaches have been able to ameliorate neurodegenerative phenotype, emotionality-related behaviours and cognitive effects in HD transgenic mice. We are interested in this project to understand the promising actions of these interventions on the differential gut microbial profile (microbiome) presented in HD mice, also previously discovered by the Hannan Laboratory at the Florey Institute. To achieve this goal, we use cognitive and behavioural tasks, as well as genetics, genomics and bioinformatics tools. These results will be crucial to our understanding of the physiological role of these environmental interventions on gut microbial profile in HD, and will help us identify new therapeutic targets to delay onset and progression of this devastating disease.
We want to investigate a new app which we hope will assist both patients and health professionals to better understand how someone’s driving is going. On-road driving assessments can be quite expensive, and so we are hoping to improve a specially designed iPad app that could save people from going for an expensive driving assessment before they need to.
Over the past two decades, our research team has played a key role in understanding how the ‘genetic stutter’ causing Huntington’s disease (HD) leads to a cascade of pathological processes, at the levels of molecules, cells, brain circuits, behaviour, cognition and mood. HD is one of a growing number of human diseases known to be caused by such ‘genetic stutters’, which are called tandem repeat disorders (reviewed by Hannan, 2018, Nature Rev. Genet.)
There are currently no effective treatments for apathy (loss of motivation) caused by HD. I am conducting this study to find out whether transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), a gentle non-invasive brain stimulation technique, can alter brain activity in a way that may be used to increase motivation in people with Huntington’s disease (HD).
Wave Life Sciences PRECISION- HD1 and PRECISION-HD2 Clinical trials Wave Life Sciences are conducting two Phase 1b/2a clinical trials called PRECISION-HD1 and PRECISION-HD2. These trials aim to specifically target and reduce the amount of mutant huntingtin protein produced, whilst leaving the healthy huntingtin protein untouched. The treatments will be administered into the fluid in the […]