Andrew Hatch
Neuroscience Across the Curriculum
22 November 2015
Huntington’s Talk
In his talk about Huntington’s, Doug McDonald Spoke about the complicated path he took on his way to become the director of drug development at his pharmaceutical firm CHOI. Huntington’s is a common neurodegenerative brain disease for which little can be done. Since diagnosis comes late, after 50 percent of the striatal neurons have died off, treatment is focused on minimizing symptoms, rather than attempting to reverse the condition. Huntington’s is caused by the enlargement of ventricles, resulting in significant decreases in cognitive functioning. Huntington’s is a disease about 1 in 10,000 individuals will develop in the United States.
First observed by Dr. Huntington in the early 1900’s, the disease bearing his name is devastating in part by the difficultly to observe the onset. Typically, Huntington’s develops in individuals around 40 years old, and over the course of years, slowly kills off cells throughout the brain, with a specific focus on the neurons comprising the striatum. Over the course of time, patients with Huntington’s lose their ability to speak and movement becomes decreased and more uncoordinated. Huntington’s has a genetic basis, where it has been observed to be a recessive allele.
The focus of Dr. McDonald’s work is to focus on early, custom tailored treatments delivered in a “gene to the clinic” fashion. Huntington’s is difficult to treat, as it is but one way to help increase success rates is to treat both early and to tailor treatment of individual patients to their specific genetic makeup. Each persons Huntington’s might be a little bit different, therefore it follows that the best treatments are one focusing on individual treatments. Modern medicine has long tried to move to this methodology of treatment but patient access, particularly costs, make this near impossible, presently.
Dr. McDonald was a graduate of Trinity. He pursued his research at Rockefeller University. There he worked in the lab of Professor Merrifeid, who in 1984 won the Nobel prince for his research on the topic. He left and went to Medical School at Boston University where he pursued his joint MD/PhD. There he got introduced to working for major drug companies when he accepted a position working for Pfizer while still in school. The introduction to industry shifted his focus away from research and into the world of drug development.