HUNTINGTON’S DISEASE CLINICAL RESEARCH

INFORMATION FOR PATIENTS, RELATIVES AND CARERS

Sarah Tabrizi PhD FRCP

Professor of Clinical Neurology

This site aims to bring together information about clinical research projects in Huntington’s disease (HD) for patients, carriers of the HD genegene. The sequence of DNA that tells a cell how to make a protein

Clinical research in Huntington’s disease is entering a new era. We are already running clinical trials into treatments that may slow down progression of the disease. There are many new treatments that have been shown to be effective in animal models of HD and are waiting to be tested in humans.

Through the Huntington’s Disease Multidisciplinary Clinic of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, we are already running a number of studies to determine the best measures of disease progression and expect to be in the front line when human treatment trials begin in earnest.

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Latest news

24th September, 2009 - Research update

We have updated our Global Research page to include the very latest news from round the world on the development of treatments for HD.

7th September, 2009 - Latest EHDN newsletter includes article about TRACK-HD

The Euro-HD network March 2009 newsletter has been released. It includes an interesting article written by a male HD gene carrier participating in TRACK-HD here at UCL. You can download the newsletter from the EHDN site. EHDN is a Europe-wide collaboration of HD researchers sharing information and ideas about HD, studies and possible treatments. EHDN is important for our research here at UCL, particularly the REGISTRY and TRACK-HD projects.

14th July, 2008 - A new inflammatory pathway in HD

I am pleased to announce a major new paper published in a top scientific publication, The Journal of Experimental Medicine. Our findings have highlighted a new pathway by which HD may cause damage and may open up new avenues of possible future therapies for HD. Read more on our new HD Inflammation page.

12th July, 2008 - Meet the team

You can now find out about members of our HD clinical research team and their research interests on the new HD research team page.

7th July, 2008 - Download our HD therapies update leaflet

We have prepared a printable leaflet giving accessible information on forthcoming possible therapies for HD that researchers round the world are working on. You can download it from our Global update page.

4th July, 2008 - A new study publication

A new paper reporting the results of our research has been published in the journal Neuropsychologia. The paper arose from the ICE-HD study and is entitled Defective emotion recognition in early HD is neuropsychologically and anatomically generic. See the Our results page for details.

21st March, 2008 - Research Update

We have updated our Global Research page to include the very latest news from round the world on the development of treatments for HD.

28th February, 2008 - EHDN newsletter

The Euro-HD network September 2008 newsletter has been released. You can download it from the EHDN site. EHDN is a Europe-wide collaboration of HD researchers sharing information and ideas about HD, studies and possible treatments. EHDN is important for our research here at UCL, particularly the REGISTRY and TRACK-HD projects.

22nd February, 2008 - Global Research Update

We have updated our Global Research page to include the very latest news from round the world on the development of treatments for HD.

14th August, 2007 - TRACK-HD Study

I’m delighted to announce a major new international study of premanifest and early Huntington’s disease. TRACK-HD aims to be the most comprehensive study of premanifest and early HD, and will define the best combination of assessments to be used in clinical trials of disease-modifying treatments in HD.

I am the lead investigator for TRACK-HD worldwide, and London will be one of the four study centres in Europe and North America. Patients of the HD Multidisciplinary Clinic and their relatives will be able to volunteer for this exciting and innovative study.

Recruitment will begin in October 2007, and the study itself will start in January 2008.

To find out more about TRACK-HD, visit the study information page.

To see whether you may be eligible to take part, use the interactive study finder tool.

You can also visit the TRACK-HD website at track-hd.net