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Please join us for the presentation of the first LESLIE GEHRY BRENNER PRIZE FOR INNOVATION IN SCIENCE

Hereditary Disease Foundation 2010 Symposium and Dinner to benefit the Leslie Gehry Brenner Fund, created by the Hereditary Disease Foundation and founding Director and Vice President Frank Gehry in honor of his late daughter

Saturday, March 6, 2010
Casa Del Mar, Santa Monica, CA


New Data Point To Huntington's Disease Hope

February 8, 2010—A study being published Monday offers hope for those with Huntington's disease. The Archives of Neurology has a report about a drug aimed at the serious cognitive deficits that people with Huntington's also suffer. LISTEN NOW


Eureka!! Glorious news to start off the New Year!!!
Read and enjoy!!!

The Hereditary Disease Foundation has supported this research from its first inception as an idea! We are very proud of the brilliant, dedicated, creative, persevering and all-around fabulous scientists who carried out this work with energy, enthusiasm, imagination and aplomb!

Congratulations, Joan, Leslie and William and all your magnificent and hard working group of investigators who put so much of their heart and soul into this work!!

Again, we are very proud!

Your Hereditary Disease Foundation family: Nancy Wexler, Carl Johnson, Alice Wexler, The Scientific Advisory Board, The Board of Directors


Dr. Ruth Kirschstein

Jennifer Jones Simon, longtime friend and Founding Trustee of the Hereditary Disease Foundation—we all miss and love you!

 


Dr. Ruth Kirschstein

Tribute to Dr. Ruth Kirschstein—The Science Community Loses an Icon

We are all deeply saddened by the news of Dr. Ruth Kirschstein's death last evening. She died peacefully, after battling a long illness. Our hearts go out to Ruth's husband, Dr. Al Rabson, and their son, Dr. Arnold Rabson.
for more details


CONGRATULATIONS, CARRIE!

Hereditary Disease Foundation Lifetime Director, lifetime friend and legendary actress, author and tabloid sensation Carrie Fisher is back on Broadway!!! Her new one-woman show, Wishful Drinking about "the highs and lows of life as a Hollywood princess" opens on Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre on September 22, 2009. for more details

CONGRATULATIONS, ALICE!

It was recently announced that Alice Wexler’s book, “The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea,” has won the 2009 American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award in the Healthcare Professionals (non-physician) category.

Michael Crichton (award-winning author of such classics as “Sphere,” “The Terminal Man,” “Jurassic Park,” and “Five Patients”) and Dr Timothy Johnson (medical editor for ABC News, founding editor of the Harvard Medical School Health Letter, and coauthor of “Let’s Talk”) are just 2 of the numerous authors who have received the prestigious AMWA Medical Book Award. The book awards were established more than 30 years ago by the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) to recognize the best of the best in nonfictional and fictional medical writing.

Frank Gehry bench for Emeco

Tuyomyo, a unique work of art by Frank Gehry, will be sold to create a million dollar fund to honor Frank's late daughter. Called the Leslie Gehry Brenner Award for Innovation in Science of the Hereditary Disease Foundation, this prize will make possible the best and most cutting edge research to find treatments and cures for genetic and brain disorders.

This piece opened to rave reviews at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, April 22-27 2009!!

For more information, call the Hereditary Disease Foundation at 212-543-5667.



Newsletter Now Available
Download the entire Fall 2008 newsletter as a PDF file now. Table of contents includes:
  • Update from HD2008: “The Milton Wexler Celebration of Life” Symposium, Cambridge, MA
  • 2008 HDF Science Funding
  • 2009 HDF Upcoming Workshops
  • HDF Scientific Advisory Board New Members and Research News
  • HDF Fundraising News
  • Tetrabenazine updates

Read Thomas D. Bird’s fantastic review of Alice Wexler’s new book, The Woman Who Walked into the Sea: Huntington's and the Making of a Genetic Disease
in the April 2, 2009 issue of Neurology Today.


 
JAMBO!!! THEY MADE IT!!!
Congratulations to the amazing Klimb for the Kure team! They summitted Mount Kilimanjaro around 2:30pm on Friday, the 13th and everyone made it! We're eagerly awaiting updates and photos upon their return home!!
KILI graphic A group of people from Seattle are climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in February 2009 to raise $1 million for the Hereditary Disease Foundation to find the cure for Huntington's disease. THEY ARE WILLING TO FIGHT TILL THE END! BE PART OF SOMETHING SPECTACULAR! PLEASE HELP!



Check out their website: www.klimbforthekure.com

Read the Wall Street Journal's fantastic review of
Alice Wexler’s new book, The Woman Who Walked into the Sea: Huntington's and the Making of a Genetic Disease!


The Hereditary Disease Foundation has created
THE LESLIE GEHRY BRENNER AWARD
FOR INNOVATION IN SCIENCE
to honor the memory of Leslie Gehry Brenner,
daughter of HDF Vice-President Frank Gehry.


Xenazine: First Treatment Approved for Chorea
in HD Now Available in the U.S.

For more information about the availability of Xenazine* (tetrabenazine) Tablets, please click here.

* Xenazine is a registered trademark of Cambridge Laboratories (Ireland) Limited.


Click below to listen to Alice Wexler's fantastic interview
on NPR on Wednesday, October 1, 2008,
where she discussed her new book,
The Woman Who Walked into the Sea: Huntington's
and the Making of a Genetic Disease
and so much more!!!
She was the featured author on
The Diane Rehm Show,
National Public Radio's flagship broadcast on books and critical issues of the day.



A Voice of HD—Click here for an incredibly
brave and inspiring essay read anonymously at
the August 2008 "Milton Wexler Celebration of Life"
Symposium in Cambridge, MA.

Click below to listen to the speech.


Tetrabenazine News—USA Today, October 28, 2008

“Doctors, families fought for approval of
Huntington’s Disease drug”

“Doctor spent decades getting tetrabenazine to market”




FDA Approves Tetrabenazine to Treat Chorea Associated with Huntington’s Disease!!

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE PAST NEWS

 

 
 

Praise for HDF

Everything I know about genomics I learned first at Hereditary Disease Foundation workshops!
Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, National Human Genome Research Institute
Recipient, Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2007
If one looks back in the development of human genetics in our current form, I think the Hereditary Disease Foundation played really the same role that the Rockefeller Foundation played in the 30s and 40s, when it permitted the development of molecular biology. It was a small group of people who weren't waiting around, but were giving money to the right people, with the thought that it was sensible.
November 1, 2005
Dr. James D. Watson, Chancellor
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962
Through the years, I have been blessed to work with superb and dedicated people, and I count the three of you, Milton, Nancy and Alice Wexler, to be at the top of that list.
Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director
National Human Genome Research Institute
National Institutes of Health
Through the active recruitment of new ideas, new technologies and new researchers, the Hereditary Disease Foundation has set the stage for important progress in our understanding of HD pathology. Their commitment to collaboration and community building within the HD field serves as a model for all scientific groups tackling human diseases.
Nature Medicine, October 2000
 

Funding News


HDF raises over $2 Million at the 40th birthday celebration and tribute to its founder, Milton Wexler!!
- Thursday, January 24, 2008
Casa del Mar, Santa Monica, CA

"Hoops for Hope," the annual Mike O'Brien Invitational basketball event, raises over $15,000 for the HDF!

 

In Memoriam

Milton Wexler
Alden "Buster" Blethen
Leslie Gehry Brenner
G. William 'Bill' Fox

G. William "Bill" Fox

Don Fritts

Don Fritts

Jennifer Jones

Jennifer Jones

Vernon M. Ingram

Ruth Kirschstei

Vernon M. Ingram

Vernon M. Ingram

William 'Bill' Modell

William “Bill” Modell

Mike O'Brien

Mike O'Brien

Dick O'Neill

Dick O'Neill

Jack Penney

 
Hereditary Disease Foundation
     

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