Women in Genetics

Nancy Wexler, PhD

Nancy Wexler is an American geneticist and is the Higgins Professor of Neuropsychology in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, as well as the President of the Hereditary Disease Foundation. She is best known for her involvement in the discovery of the location of the gene that causes Huntington's Disease. Wexler's mother, grandfather and several uncles died of Huntington's Disease, so the disease was close to her heart and held meaning beyond scientific interest. She led a research team into a remote part of Venezuela where the disease is prevalent and obtained DNA samples from a large family with a majority of the members having Huntington's disease. The samples her team collected were instrumental in allowing a global collaborative research group to locate the gene that causes the disease. Wexler participated in the successful effort to create a chromosomal test to identify carriers of Huntington's disease.