About the Speaker

Christopher E. Pearson, PhD
Senior Scientist, Program of Genetics & Genome Biology
The Hospital for Sick Children
Full-Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics
University of Toronto
Canada Research Chair in Disease-Associated Genome Instability

Since 1993 Christopher Pearson has studied the mechanisms of disease-causing repeat instability associated with neurological, neurodegenerative and neuromuscular disease, with the goal of developing treatments by targeting the disease-causing repeat expansions. His lifetime goal is to treat repeat diseases by arresting or reversing somatic CAG expansions.

His lab works on molecular, cellular, and mouse models, and patient tissues of Huntington’s disease, myotonic dystrophy, various spinocerebellar ataxias, fragile X mental retardation, and C9orf72-associated amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Focus is upon DNA repair, DNA damage, epigenetics, and unusual DNA structures formed by the repeats. Recent advances include identifying repeat expansions associated with autism, as well as identifying the first small-molecule to induce contractions of the expanded CAG repeat in the striatum of HD mice.