The Medical Foundation Morning Tea with Professor Simon Hawke

Towards gene therapy for neurodegenerative disease

On Tuesday 26 May 2009, the Medical Foundation hosted a morning tea for its friends and donors to hear a presentation by Neurologist, Professor Simon Hawke.

Professor Hawke's engaging talk, titled Towards gene therapy for neurodegenerative disease, outlined how the misfolding of certain proteins cause diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, motor neuron disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, to name a few. Professor Hawke went on to explain how exciting new break throughs in virus therapy could potentially offer a single hit treatment to cure these debilitating diseases.

Professor Simon Hawke is the Medical Foundation’s Jessie Alberti Senior Principal Research Fellow and receives support of $1M over 5 years. He is based at the Brain & Mind Research Institute at the University of Sydney.

Click here to view Professor Hawke’s presentation.