Nancy Wexler, PhD

  • Higgins Professor of Neuropsychology (in Psychiatry, Neurology, and in Neuroscience)

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Overview

Nancy Wexler, Ph.D., is Higgins Professor of Neuropsychology in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, as well as the President of the Hereditary Disease Foundation. Involved in public policy, individual counseling, genetic research, and federal health administration, she is most widely known for her important scientific contribution on Huntington's disease. Since 1979, Wexler has led a research study in Venezuela of the world's largest family with Huntington's disease, developing a pedigree of over 18,000 individuals and collecting over 4,000 blood samples which helped lead to the identification of the Huntington's disease gene at the tip of human chromosome 4. These same blood samples have assisted in the mapping of other disease genes, including those responsible for familial Alzheimer's disease, kidney cancer, two kinds of neurofibromatosis, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), dwarfism and others. One result of this work was the development of a presymptomatic test which could tell who is carrying the fatal gene prior to the onset of symptoms.

Wexler currently holds or has held numerous 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 the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) and Member of the Institute of Medicine. Wexler has served as a member of the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and on the Advisory Committee on Research on Women's Health, NIH. She has received numerous honors and awards, including several honorary doctorates.

Dr. Wexler received the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science. She is a Council Member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. She is also a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; a Fellow at the Royal College of Physicians; a Fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Section on Neuroscience; a Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts; and Councilor, Society for Neuroscience. She is an honorary Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences and a Member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. In 1993, she received the Albert Lasker Public Service Award.

Academic Appointments

  • Higgins Professor of Neuropsychology (in Psychiatry, Neurology, and in Neuroscience)

Gender

  • Female

Research

Selected Publications

  • Gusella JF, Wexler NS, Conneally PM, Naylor SL, Anderson MA, Tanzi RE, Watkins PC, Ottina K, Wallace MR, Sakaguchi AY, Young AB, Shoulson I, Bonilla E, Martin JB: A Polymorphic DNA Marker Genetically Linked to Huntington's Disease. Nature 1983;306: 234-8
  • The Huntington's Disease Collaborative Research Group: A Novel Gene Containing a Trinucleotide Repeat That is Expanded and Unstable on Huntington's Disease Chromosomes. Cell 1993;72: 971-983
  • Nancy S. Wexler, Judith Lorimer, Julie Porter, Fidela Gomez, Carol Moskowitz, Edith Shackell, Karen Marder, Graciela Penchaszadeh, Simone A. Roberts, Javier Gayan, Denise Brocklebank, Stacey S. Cherny, Lon R. Cardon et al: Venezuelan kindreds reveal that genetic and environmental factors modulate Huntington's disease age of onset. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2004;101(15): 3498-3503
  • Andresen JM, Gay�n J, Djouss� L, Roberts S, Brocklebank, D, Cherny SS, The US-Venezuela Collaborative Research Group, The HD MAPS Collaborative Research Group, Cardon LR, Gusella JF, MacDonald ME, Myers RH, Housman DE, Wexler NS: The relationship between CAG repeat length and age of onset differs for Huntington's disease patients with juvenile onset or adult onset. Ann. of Hum. Gen 2006;71: 295-301
  • Gayán J, Brocklebank D, Andresen JM, Alkorta-Aranburu G; US-Venezuela Collaborative Research Group, Zameel Cader M, Roberts SA, Cherny SS, Wexler NS, Cardon LR, Housman DE: Genomewide linkage scan reveals novel loci modifying age of onset of Huntington's disease in the Venezuelan HD kindreds. Genet Epidemiol 2008;32: 445-53