About the Speakers

Brent Fitzwalter, PhD
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Outfoxing HD: Does the Aging-Related Gene FOXO3 Hold the Key?

Brent Fitzwalter is a Hereditary Disease Foundation Postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Myriam Heiman at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. Brent completed his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He obtained his PhD in Pharmacology at the University of Colorado studying the molecular mechanisms that link autophagy and cell death. Currently, his research in Dr. Heiman’s lab focuses on the role of the aging-related transcription factor FOXO3 in Huntington’s disease.

Rachel Harding, PhD
University of Toronto, Canada

Unlocking the Secrets of the Mysterious HD Protein

Rachel Harding is a HDSA Berman Topper fellow in the lab of Professor Cheryl Arrowsmith at the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) at the University of Toronto, Canada. Rachel completed both her undergraduate and DPhil at the University of Oxford where she trained in structural biology and protein chemistry. Rachel is researching the Huntington’s disease protein, huntingtin, and investigating its structure-function relationship.