My first year out of college, I worked as a lab technician in a neurobiology lab at Massachusetts General Hospital East researching drug addiction. I was 22 years old in February 1993 when the scientists down the hall began celebrating, puncturing the typically austere bubble of this neuroscience research floor with big emotion. I remember pausing, my pipette hovering ready in hand, waiting for the details of whatever this exciting news was to reach me. I could feel it coming like a wave. The news was monumental. These scientists down the hall had just isolated the genetic mutation that causes Huntington’s disease (HD). I remember the goosebumps on my arms, knowing I was witnessing a historic moment in all of neuroscience. This genetic mutation is the only thing that
