Canadian patient played key role in uncovering secrets about early-onset Alzheimer's disease

John Lyttle

Canadian Medical Association Journal 1996; 154: 905-907

John Lyttle is a freelance writer living in Ottawa.

Abstract

Last June, the University of Toronto announced that Canadian scientists and a team of international researchers had discovered the gene responsible for most cases of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. One of the key players in that discovery had died just 3 months earlier. Frances Hodge, who participated in a battery of tests for the 20 years she lived with the disease, helped lead researchers to gene S182 -- and an ember of hope for future generations.

CMAJ March 15, 1996 (vol 154, no 6) |