Nancy Wexler

Nancy Wexler
Wexler in March 2015
Born	(1945-07-19) July 19, 1945 (age 71)
Nationality	United States
Fields	Genetics
Institutions	Columbia University
Alma mater	Radcliffe College University of Michigan
Known for	Contributing to identification of the gene that causes Huntington's disease
Notable awards	Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science (2007)

Nancy Wexler (born July 19, 1945)FRCP is an American geneticist and the Higgins Professor of Neuropsychology at Columbia University, best known for her involvement in the discovery of the location of the gene that causes Huntington's disease. She earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology but instead chose to work in the field of genetics. The daughter of a Huntington's patient, she led a research team into a remote part of Venezuela where the disease is prevalent. 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.

Wexler's father was a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist, and her mother was a geneticist. Wexler studied for her A.B. in psychology at Radcliffe College, graduating in 1967. She then earned a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan in 1974. While studying for her A.B. she was required to take an introductory biology course, which constitutes "[her] only formal education in biology". In 1968 her father started the Hereditary Diseases Foundation, which introduced her to scientists such as geneticists and molecular biologists. Along with textbooks and lectures she attends, the scientists "have really been [her] teachers since then."

In 1976 the U.S. Congress formed the Commission for the Control of Huntington’s Disease, and as part of their work, Wexler and the team travelled to Barranquitas and Lagunetas, two settlements on Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, where villagers had a particularly high occurrence of Huntington's. Starting in 1979, the team conducted a twenty-year-long study in which they collected over 4,000 blood samples and documented 18,000 different individuals to work out a common pedigree. The discovery that the gene was on the tip of chromosome 4 led to the development of a test for the disease. For her work, she has been awarded the Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science (2007), and honorary doctorates from New York Medical College, the University of Michigan, Bard College and Yale University. She is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution.