| Nancy Wexler | |
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Wexler at a charity benefit in October 2008
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| Born | July 19, 1945 |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | genetics |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Alma mater | Radcliffe College University of Michigan |
| Known for | discovering the location of the gene that causes Huntington's disease and a test to identify sufferers |
| Notable awards | Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science (2007) |
Nancy Wexler (born July 19, 1945)[1] FRCP 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). Despite having an AB and PhD in clinical psychology, Wexler instead chose to work in genetics. Herself the daughter of a Huntington's sufferer, as part of a team in Venezuela she located the gene that causes it and created a chromosomal test to identify sufferers.
Her older sister, Alice Wexler, 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 that describes how the Wexlers coped with a diseased mother while simultaneously trying to spearhead Huntington's disease research.
Wexler's father was a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist, and her mother was a geneticist. 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.[2] While studying for her A.B. she was required to take an introductory biology course, which constitutes "[her] only formal education in biology".[3] In 1968 her father started the Hereditary Diseases 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."[3]
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 year long study in which they collected over 4,000 blood samples and documented 18,000 different individuals to work out a common pedigree.[4] The discovery that the gene was on the tip of chromosome 4 led to the development of a test for the disease.[5] 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.[1] She is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution. [6]