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Nancy Wexler was born July 19, 1945, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Topeka, Kansas. Wexler is a geneticist and the Higgins Professor of Neuropsychology at Columbia University, best known for her discovery of the location of the gene that causes Huntington's disease (Huntington's chorea). [1] Despite having an A.B. (Artium Baccalaureatus is the same as a Bachelor's in Arts [2]), and Ph.D. in clinical psychology, Wexler instead chose to work in genetics. She is the daughter, granddaughter, and niece of Huntington’s disease (HD) sufferers, and was part of a team in Venezuela who located the gene that causes it and created a chromosomal test to identify sufferers. Her sister, Alice Wexler is three years older, and has her Ph.D. in History and also contributed to the field of Huntington's. Nancy and the rest of the Wexler family feature prominently in Alice's book, Mapping Fate -A Memoir of Family, Risk, and Genetic Research [3] that describes how the Wexler’s coped with a diseased mother while simultaneously trying to spearhead HD research. Alice is now working on a new book on the social history of HD. [1]

Life and education

Wexler's father, Dr. Milton Wexler, was a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist, and her mother was a geneticist who taught biology before her children were born. Both parents taught the girls different areas of science, including the environment, nature, physics, and astronomy. Wexler’s grandfather died when her mother, Leonore, was only 15 years old. Leonore looked up HD at the library and read that it was “a fatal, inherited disease only affecting men.” [1] Leonore’s three brothers, Seymour, Paul, and Jesse Sabin, all suffered from HD and died within four years of each other. The diagnosis was kept a secret from the rest of the family for many years. The uncles were call nervous instead of ill. When Leonore started showing symptoms of HD, her then ex-husband, Milton, kept the diagnosis from her for about a year. She still thought that HD only affected men. When they finally told her she had HD, Nancy said, “Her mother did not protest. It seemed as if Leonore, knowing her family history, had perhaps understood the truth all along.” [1]

From 1963, Wexler studied for her A.B. in psychology at Radcliffe College, graduating in 1967. She then gained a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan in 1974. [4] While studying for her A.B. she was required to take an introductory biology course, which constitutes "[her] only formal education in biology." [5] In 1968 her father started the Hereditary Disease Foundation, which introduced her to scientists such as geneticists and molecular biologists. Along with textbooks and lectures she attends, the scientists "have really been [her] teachers since then." [5] Nancy and Alice both became very involved in the foundation and both became trustees. Nancy is now President of the foundation. The group raises funds for research on HD and related inherited diseases. They also sponsor interdisciplinary workshops for scientists who work on HD and other genetic diseases. [1]

In 1976 the U.S. Congress formed the Commission for the Control of Huntington’s Disease, and as part of their work, Wexler and the team travelled to Barranquitas and Lagunetas, two settlements on Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, where villagers had a particularly high occurrence of Huntington's. Starting in 1979, the team conducted a twenty yearlong study in which they collected over 4,000 blood samples and documented 18,000 different individuals to work out a common pedigree. [6] The discovery that the gene was on the tip of chromosome 4 led to the development of a test for the disease. [7] For her work, she has been awarded the Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science (2007), and honorary doctorates from New York Medical College, the University of Michigan, Bard College and Yale University. [8] She is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution. [9]

Wexler’s mother’s symptoms progressed from fingers moving constantly, to uncontrollable motions. Nancy explains, “When she sat, her spasmodic body movements would propel her chair along the floor until it reached a wall, her head would bang repeatedly against the wall. To keep her from hurting herself at night, her bed was padded with lamb’s wool.” She continued to lose weight; she needed to consume at least 5,000 calories a day because of her unique metabolism. Finally, on Mother’s Day of 1978, she passed away. Neither of Leonore’s daughters has shown symptoms of HD. [1]

Nancy currently holds or has held many public policy positions, including: Chair of the Joint NIH/DOE Ethical, Legal and Social Issues Working Group of the National Center for Human Genome Research; Chair of HUGO, the Human Genome Organization; and member of the Institute of Medicine. She has served on the American Association for the Advancement of Science board of directors, and the advisory committee on Research on Women’s Health, NIH. [11]

Education [10]:

1963-1967 A.B. cum laude, Radcliffe College, Social Relations and English 1967-1968 University of West Indies, Jamaica on Fulbright Scholarship 1968 Hampstead Clinic Child Psychoanalytic Training Institute, London, England 1968-1974 Ph.D., University of Michigan, Clinical Psychology Wexler did her thesis on Huntington’s disease, focusing on how it felt to be at risk for the disease. (1)

Citations

[1] Gene Hunter the story of neuropsychologist Nancy Wexler, 2005, Scholastic, New York. Retrieved 2012-6-25.

[2] http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_A.B._stand_for_as_an_academic_degree. Retrieved 2012-7-2.

[3] http://books.google.com/books/about/Mapping_Fate.html?id=gq_zgZi_NQkC. Retrieved 2012-7-6

[4] ^ "Heredtiary Disease Foundation - Nancy Wexler". Heredtiary Disease Foundation. Retrieved 2009-10-20.

[5] ^ a b "An Interview with Dr. Nancy Wexler". Huntington's Association. Retrieved 2009-10-20.

[6] ] ^ "Nancy Wexler PhD - Department profile". Columbia University. Retrieved 2009-10-20.

[7] ^ "WIC - Biography - Nancy Wexler". WIC. Retrieved 2009-10-20.

[8] ^ a b "Nancy Wexler CV". Hereditary Disease Foundation. Retrieved 2009-10-20

[9] ^ The Hastings Center Hastings Center Fellows. Accessed 2010-11-6.

[10] http://www.hdfoundation.org/bios/cvs/NANCY-WEXLER-CV-09-07.pdf Retrieved 2012-6-30.

[11] http://asp.cumc.columbia.edu/facdb/profile_list.asp?uni=nsw1&DepAffil=Psychiatry. Retrieved 2012-6-28