About the Speakers

Michelle Gray, PhD
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Michelle Gray is an Associate Professor in Neurology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Her laboratory is supported by grants from NIH/NINDS and the Hereditary Disease foundation. She uses a mouse model that that she developed in the lab of Dr. William Yang during her postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles to understand the contribution of specific cell types to the pathogen edits of Huntington’s disease. Although she has a new interest in the role of mHTT in the cardiovascular abnormalities in HD, her laboratory has been primarily focused on non-neuronal cells in the brain, specifically astrocytes and their contribution to HD pathogenesis.

Sophie St-Cyr, PhD
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Sophie St-Cyr is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Beverly Davison’s lab in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA. She obtained a Master’s degree from the University of Montreal and completed a PhD on the long-term impacts of prenatal stress at the University of Toronto in 2017. Dr. St-Cyr developed an interest to explain the molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic changes. Currently, her research focuses on the heart pathology in Huntington’s disease to improve the quality of life of patients. She explores the contribution of changes in gene and microRNA expression in the HD reduced heart size and contractile function. 

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