Jun 30, 2021
For much of the history of neurology, diagnosing a genetic disease meant giving bad news. Genetic meant incurable, often fatal. On past shows, we’ve talked about how this narrative is changing for certain monogenic diseases like Huntington’s Disease, where emerging gene therapies offer hope for a cure. But what hope can the field of neurogenetics offer to patients with more complex diseases with both genetic and environmental risk factors, like Alzheimer’s? Our guest today, Dr. M. Elizabeth Ross, is Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience in the Brain and Mind Research Institute and Director of the Center for Neurogenetics at Weill Cornell Medicine. Her lab works on the genetics of neurologic diseases affecting humans at every stage of the lifecycle. Today she’ll help us understand the role of genetics in a range of neurodegenerative diseases -- and how and when clinicians should incorporate genetic considerations into patient care. Series 2, Episode 8