Hi Reddit!
In 2010, we watched Sonia's mom die of a rapid, mysterious neurodegenerative disease that baffled her doctors. After her death, we learned that it had been a genetic prion disease, and Sonia was at 50/50 risk. We got genetic testing and learned, in late 2011, that Sonia had inherited the lethal mutation, meaning that unless a treatment or cure is developed, she's very likely to suffer the same fate, probably by about age 50. After learning this information, we abandoned our old careers in law and city planning, and threw ourselves headfirst into re-training as scientists. Four years later, we're both Harvard biology PhD students, and we work side-by-side Stuart Schreiber's lab at the Broad Institute, where we are researching therapeutics for prion disease.
A husband and wife's race to cure her fatal genetic disease, Kathleen Burge, Boston Globe Magazine, February 17, 2016
Insomnia that kills, Aimee Swartz, The Atlantic, February 5, 2015
Computer scientist makes prion advance, Erika Check Hayden, Nature News, October 2, 2014
A prion love story, D.T. Max, The New Yorker, September 27, 2013
We’ll be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything!
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