Novel therapies in the search for a cure for Huntington's disease

The present era is one of tremendous excitement and rapid innovation in Huntington's disease (HD) research. The pace of research seems to be rapidly quickening. The discovery of the gene and the subsequent development of transgenic mouse models of HD have been major breakthroughs. Now, after a large number of experimental studies in animals, a few pilot clinical trials have been initiated. The work presented by Freeman et al. (1) in a recent issue of PNAS reports the survival and development of a graft, derived from human fetal striatal, in a patient with HD.