Nancy S. Wexler Young Investigator Prize
Fostering the highest level of scientific research in the field of Huntington’s disease, the Nancy S. Wexler Discovery Fund supports the recruitment of young scientists, collaborative research, scientific conferences, and the Nancy S. Wexler Young Investigator Prize. Click here to learn more about the Fund.
The Nancy S. Wexler Young Investigator Prize, a distinctive recognition selected by the HDF Scientific Advisory Board, is presented annually to an early-career researcher whose work reflects the highest caliber of excellence, diligence, and creative thinking.
2026 Recipient
Won-Seok Lee, PhD
Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Boston, MA
Mentor: Steven McCarroll, PhD
Dr. Lee is tackling a pressing open question in Huntington’s disease research: What actually kills neurons with very long CAG repeat expansions, and do protein clumps play a role?
Protein clumps inside neurons have been recognized as a hallmark of HD pathology for decades. More recently, the field has discovered that CAG repeats can expand over a person’s lifetime, through a process called somatic expansion, and that neurons with the longest expansions are the ones most vulnerable to disease. Dr. Lee made a striking observation connecting these two threads. His work suggests that the same neurons that carry the longest somatic expansions are the very same neurons that contain toxic protein clumps.
Now he wants to know what it means. His project will investigate how an aggregation-prone fragment of the huntingtin protein called HTT1a accumulates in affected cells, what changes occur to the molecular marks that control which genes are turned on or off, and whether protein clumps cause harm by trapping key regulatory proteins that cells need to maintain healthy gene levels.
Dr. Lee made a discovery that no one else had made, and is propelling that curiosity-driven, rigorous science to reveal what’s truly driving neuronal death in HD, hoping to open new doors to treatment.
Past Recipients
Vanessa Casha, PhD
2025
Rachel J. Harding, PhD
2024
Chiara Scaramuzzino, PhD
2023
Natalia Barbosa, PhD
2022
Sarah Hernandez, PhD
2021
Osama Al Dalahmah, MD, DPhil
2020
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