Workshops: An Uncommon Research Model

Traditional research can be restrictive. Scientists often work in isolation, pursuing complicated outcomes. Since its inception, the Hereditary Disease Foundation has challenged this traditional research model by creating Milton Wexler Workshops.

These Workshops are designed around scientific collaboration, which allows many researchers with various specialties to work together toward the same end goal. Credit for breakthroughs is shared by all collaborators involved, regardless of which vein of research or which scientist arrives to the discovery first. HDF understands that complex problems and cures are discovered when there are shared learnings between scientists. We bring together a mixture of ideas and imagination from students to senior scientists, including those in academia and industry, which allow for cross-pollination of ideas. The success of the Workshops has brought many promising young scientists into this field to dedicate a life-long career researching HD.

Each workshop opens with a presentation by a person living with HD to introduce researchers to someone from the patient community, perhaps for the first time. It serves to remind all researchers, regardless of seniority, why they are doing what they are doing, and ensures that the patient perspective and needs are at the forefront of thoughts driving the research landscape.