Huda Zoghbi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Huda Yahya Zoghbi[1]
Huda Zoghbi.jpg
Born
Huda El-Hibri

1954 (age 66–67)[2]
Beirut, Lebanon
Alma materBaylor College of Medicine
Meharry Medical College
American University of Beirut
Known forResearch in Rett syndrome and spinocerebellar ataxia type 1
Spouse(s)William Zoghbi[3]
AwardsTexas Women Hall of Fame (2008)
Gruber Prize in Neuroscience (2011)
Pearl Meister Greengard Prize (2013)
Dickson Prize (2013)
Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine (2016)
Canada Gairdner International Award (2017)
Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2017)
Brain Prize (2020)
Scientific career
FieldsGenetics
Neuroscience
InstitutionsRegeneron Pharmaceuticals[4]
Baylor College of Medicine
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Texas Children's Hospital

Huda Yahya Zoghbi (Arabic: هدى الهبري الزغبي Hudā al-Hibrī az-Zughbī; born 1954), born Huda El-Hibri,[2] is a Lebanese-born American geneticist, and a professor at the Departments of Molecular and Human Genetics, Neuroscience and Neurology at the Baylor College of Medicine. She is the director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute.[5][6]

Her work helped elucidate the genes and genetic mechanisms responsible for a number of devastating neurological disorders, such as Rett syndrome and Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1.[7] Zoghbi's discoveries have provided new ways of thinking about other neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, autism and intellectual disability, which could lead to new therapeutics and better, more efficient treatments.[8][9]

In 2017, she was awarded the Canada Gairdner International Award and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. In 2020, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine.[10]

Early life and education[]

Huda Zoghbi was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1954, and raised in Beirut. She loved reading works by William Shakespeare, Jane Austen and William Wordsworth in high school and intended to pursue literature at university.[11] Her mother convinced her to study biology instead, on the grounds that 'a woman growing up in the Middle East should pick a career ensuring independence and security, while she can always write on the side'.[12][11] Zoghbi was admitted as a biological sciences major at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 1973 and entered the university's medical school 2 years later.[11]

The Lebanese Civil War began in 1976 during her first year of medical school. Although she and her classmates decided to stay at the university, after her brother was injured by shrapnel, their parents sent them to live with their sister in Austin, Texas, with plans to return the following summer.[11][13] The war, however, raged on, and Zoghbi was under the impression that school terms at American medical schools began in October, as was the case with Lebanese schools. However, in October, it was confirmed that she was still unable to return to Lebanon due to the war, and US medical schools had begun their fall term 2 months earlier. Her family friends in America suggested she apply to Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt did not accept transfer students, but recommended Meharry Medical College instead; Meharry accepted her on the spot.[13] Despite her continued desire to return to Lebanon the next summer, on the advice of professors at AUB, she stayed at Meharry and earned an MD degree in 1979, after which she joined the Texas Children's Hospital at the Baylor College of Medicine as a pediatric resident.[11]

Zoghbi initially intended to specialise in pediatric cardiology, out of an interest in the heart. During her rotation at pediatric neurology, Marvin Fishman, the head of the division, convinced her that the brain was more interesting than the heart. She thus started a 3-year term as a postdoctoral researcher in pediatric neurology after she finished her residency in 1982.

Career[]

From 1982 to 1985, Zoghbi was a postdoctoral researcher in pediatric neurology at the Baylor College of Medicine. She became an assistant professor at the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor in 1988, and was successively promoted to associate professor in 1991 and professor in 1994.[14] At present, Zoghbi is a professor at the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor, with appointments as a professor at the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of Pediatrics Section of Neurology and Developmental Neuroscience, the Ralph Feigin, M.D. Endowed Chair, the director of the Texas Children's Hospital Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, a member of the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.[5] She is also a member of the board of directors of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.[4] She also served on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2014.

Research[]

In 1983, Zoghbi learnt of Rett syndrome from Bengt Hagberg's account in Annals of Neurology. The paper allowed Zoghbi to diagnose a five-year-old she treated at Texas Children's Hospital, and a week later she saw another patient with the same set of symptoms. When she investigated medical records, she found more cases of Rett syndrome that had been misdiagnosed. This sparked her interest in Rett syndrome, at a time when there was no report of the disease in the US.[2] An article she published in 1985[15] attracted many Rett syndrome patients to Texas Children's Hospital, giving her access to a large number of cases.[16]

Since most patients of Rett syndrome were girls, and symptoms were very consistent across patients, Zoghbi believed genetics were involved in the disease process.[2] This led her to join Arthur Beaudet's group in 1985, after finishing her term as a postdoctoral researcher, for training in genetics and molecular biology.[13] Beaudet advised against Rett syndrome as her research project since its mode of inheritance was still not obvious, and recommended a more approachable problem – spinocerebellar ataxia type 1, a dominantly inherited neurological disorder. In 1988, Zoghbi left Beaudet's group and founded her own lab at Baylor.[11] In addition to her research on spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 and Rett syndrome, Zoghbi is participating in a joint research collaboration into CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder, funded by the Loulou Foundation, Baylor College of Medicine and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital[17]

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1[]

Following the establishment of her own lab, Zoghbi continued studying spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1), in collaboration with Harry Orr from the University of Minnesota.[18] On the same day, 8 April 1993, both Zoghbi and Orr identified ATXN1 as the gene responsible for SCA1.[13] They determined that the disease was caused by an expansion of the glutamine-encoding CAG trinucleotide repeat in this gene, and that the younger the age of onset, the longer the CAG repeat.[19] Further work by Zoghbi, Orr and their teams demonstrated that the misfolding, aggregation, and proteasomal degradation of the protein product of this gene, Ataxin 1, played a role in the disorder.[20]

Math1[]

After solving the etiology of spinocerebellar ataxia type 1, Zoghbi began studying animal genes related to balance. As Baylor's Hugo J. Bellen described the role of the atonal gene in balance in fruit flies, Zoghbi chose to study its mammalian homolog. A member of her lab successfully cloned the mouse homolog, Math1, in 1996.[21] Her team went on to find that, in addition to its involvement in balance and coordination, Math1 is also crucial to hearing [22] and the formation of secretory cells in the gut.[23] Her lab has also shown that aberrant activation of Math1 could lead to medulloblastoma, a common childhood brain tumor, and that mice which did not express Math1, did not develop the tumor.[24]

Rett syndrome[]

Ever since Zoghbi was introduced to Rett syndrome early in her career, she has been working on the disorder alongside other research, despite the lack of enthusiasm from her colleagues, fellow researchers and funding agencies. The main reason is that very few individuals and even fewer families are available for investigation. In the 1990s, she collaborated with Uta Francke from Stanford University to identify the gene responsible for Rett syndrome. In 1992, she narrowed down the target to a section of the X chromosome.[25] In 1999, a postdoctoral researcher in Zoghbi's lab identified MECP2 as the causative gene.[26] The MECP2 protein binds methylated cytosine (5-methylcytosine) in CpG sites, and is indispensable for almost all brain cells.[13] In the paper, she and her team demonstrated that Rett syndrome was an X-linked dominant disorder, meaning that when 1 of the 2 copies of the MECP2 gene is abnormal, Rett syndrome will result.[12]

Zoghbi's team keeps studying MECP2, and discovered in 2004 that overexpressing the protein in mouse led to an autism-like neurological disorder.[27] In 2009, she found mice deficient of the Mecp2 gene (the mouse homolog of human MECP2) had lower levels of norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin,[28] consistent with her clinical observations of patients of Rett syndrome in 1985. Recently, Zoghbi confirmed that the MECP2 protein also bound 5-methylcytosine not in CpG sites,[29] and that restoring the level of MECP2 protein in a subset of neurons was sufficient to rescue some symptoms of Rett syndrome.[30]

Ataxin-1 link to Alzheimer's[]

After linking the gene Ataxin-1 to SCA1, Zoghbi's lab was approached by Dr. Jaehong Suh of the Massachusetts General Hospital's MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease to investigate the connection between ataxin-1 gene and Alzheimer’s disease.[31] The subsequent study found that loss of ataxin-1 elevates BACE1 expression and Aβ pathology in mouse models, rendering it a potential contributor to risk and pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease.[32]

Awards and honors[]

Personal life[]

Zoghbi met her husband, William Zoghbi when they were medical students in the American University of Beirut. In 1977, she continued her medical school study in Meharry Medical College, and William transferred to Meharry next year. They both had their residencies in the Baylor College of Medicine after graduation. They married in 1980 and have 2 children.[3] William is the chief of the Department of Cardiology at Houston Methodist Hospital.[48]

References[]

  1. ^ Cha, Ariana Eunjung (4 December 2016). "Silicon Valley's 'Nobels': Mega-prizes awarded for work in brains, the origins of life and gravitational waves". Washington Post. Retrieved 13 December 2018.[dead link]
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Azvolinsky, Anna (1 November 2018). "Genetic Neurologist: A Profile of Huda Zoghbi". The Scientist. Retrieved 13 December 2018. Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Zoghbi, Huda Y. (27 September 2016). "Autobiography of Huda Y Zoghbi". Shaw Prize Foundation. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b "Huda Y. Zoghbi, M.D." Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g "Huda Yahya Zoghbi, M.D." Baylor College of Medicine. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  6. ^ "Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute". Texas Children's Hospital.
  7. ^ "Profile of Huda Y. Zoghbi". Pnas.org.
  8. ^ "American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Huda Zoghbi". Amacad.org.
  9. ^ "Rockefeller University. Huda Zoghbi". Rockefeller.edu.
  10. ^ "2020 Nobel season opens with medicine prize". France 24. 2020.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Nuzzo, Regina (28 February 2006). "Profile of Huda Y. Zoghbi". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 103 (9): 3017–3019. doi:10.1073/pnas.0509604103. PMC 1413894. PMID 16492741.
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b Ellen, Elliot (12 March 2018). "Women in science: Huda Zoghbi discovered the genetic basis of Rett syndrome". Jackson Laboratory. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Neill, Ushma S. (1 March 2016). "A conversation with Huda Zoghbi". Journal of Clinical Investigation. 126 (3): 797–798. doi:10.1172/JCI86445. PMC 4767342. PMID 26928032.
  14. ^ "Biographical Notes of Laureates". Shaw Prize Foundation. 31 May 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  15. ^ Zoghbi, Huda Y.; Percy, Alan K.; Glaze, Daniel G.; Butler, Ian J.; Riccardi, Vincent M. (10 October 1985). "Reduction of Biogenic Amine Levels in the Rett Syndrome". New England Journal of Medicine. 33 (15): 921–924. doi:10.1056/NEJM198510103131504. PMID 2412119.
  16. ^ Zoghbi, Huda (9 February 2016). "Interview with Huda Zoghbi" (Interview). Interviewed by McMullen Darra. Texas Medical Center Women's History Project. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  17. ^ Gutierrez, Graciela (30 October 2019). "Research collaboration focuses on CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder". Baylor College of Medicine Research News.
  18. ^ Zoghbi, Huda Y; Mehta, Arpan R (September 2021). "Purkinje cells and their trees". The Lancet Neurology. 20 (9): 706. doi:10.1016/s1474-4422(21)00243-x. ISSN 1474-4422. PMID 34418395. S2CID 237210143.
  19. ^ Orr, Harry T.; Chung, Ming-yi; Banfi, Sandro; Kwiatkowski Jr., Thomas J.; Servadio, Antonio; Beaudet, Arthur L.; McCall, Alanna E.; Duvick, Lisa A.; Ranum, Laura P. W.; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (1 July 1993). "Expansion of an unstable trinucleotide CAG repeat in spinocerebellar ataxia type 1". Nature Genetics. 4 (3): 221–226. doi:10.1038/ng0793-221. PMID 8358429. S2CID 8877695.
  20. ^ Cummings, Christopher J.; Mancini, Michael A.; Antalffy, Barbara; DeFranco, Donald B.; Orr, Harry T.; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (1 June 1998). "Chaperone suppression of aggregation and altered subcellular proteasome localization imply protein misfolding in SCA1". Nature Genetics. 19 (2): 148–154. doi:10.1038/502. PMID 9620770. S2CID 30029147.
  21. ^ Ben-Arie, Nissim; McCall, Alanna E.; Berkman, Scott; Eichele, Gregor; Bellen, Hugo J.; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (1 September 1996). "Evolutionary conservation of sequence and expression of the bHLH protein Atonal suggests a conserved role in neurogenesis". Human Molecular Genetics. 5 (9): 1207–1216. doi:10.1093/hmg/5.9.1207. PMID 8872459.
  22. ^ Bermingham, Nessan A.; Hassan, Bassem A.; Price, Steven D.; Vollrath, Melissa A.; Ben-Arie, Nissim; Eatock, Ruth A.; Bellen, Hugo J.; Lysakowski, Anna; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (11 June 1999). "Math1: An Essential Gene for the Generation of Inner Ear Hair Cells". Science. 284 (5421): 1837–1841. doi:10.1126/science.284.5421.1837. PMID 10364557.
  23. ^ Yang, Qi; Bermingham, Nessan A.; Finegold, Milton J.; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (7 December 2001). "Requirement of Math1 for secretory cell lineage commitment in the mouse intestine". Science. 294 (5549): 2155–2158. Bibcode:2001Sci...294.2155Y. doi:10.1126/science.1065718. PMID 11739954. S2CID 27540123.
  24. ^ Flora, Adriano; Klisch, Tiemo J.; Schuster, Gabriele; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (4 December 2009). "Deletion of Atoh1 Disrupts Sonic Hedgehog Signaling in the Developing Cerebellum and Prevents Medulloblastoma". Science. 326 (5958): 1424–1427. Bibcode:2009Sci...326.1424F. doi:10.1126/science.1181453. PMC 3638077. PMID 19965762.
  25. ^ Ellison, Kimberley A.; Fill, Carolyn P.; Terwilliger, Joseph; DeGennaro, Louis J.; Martin-Gallardo, Antonia; Anvret, Maria; Percy, Alan K.; Ott, Jurg; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (Feb 1992). "Examination of X chromosome markers in Rett syndrome: exclusion mapping with a novel variation on multilocus linkage analysis". American Journal of Human Genetics. 50 (2): 278–287. PMC 1682446. PMID 1734712.
  26. ^ Amir, Ruthie E.; Van den Veyver, Ignatia B.; Wan, Mimi; Tran, Charles Q.; Francke, Uta; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (1 October 1999). "Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in X-linked MECP2, encoding methyl-CpG-binding protein 2". Nature Genetics. 23 (2): 185–188. doi:10.1038/13810. PMID 10508514. S2CID 3350350.
  27. ^ Collins, Ann L.; Levenson, Jonathan M.; Vilaythong, Alexander P.; Richman, Ronald; Armstrong, Dawna L.; Noebels, Jeffrey L.; Sweatt, J. David; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (6 September 2004). "Mild overexpression of MeCP2 causes a progressive neurological disorder in mice". Human Molecular Genetics. 13 (21): 2679–2689. doi:10.1093/hmg/ddh282. PMID 15351775.
  28. ^ Samaco, Rodney C.; Mandel-Brehm, Caleigh; Chao, Hsiao-Tuan; Ward, Christopher S.; Fyffe-Maricich, Sharyl L.; Ren, Jun; Hyland, Keith; Thaller, Christina; Maricich, Stephen M.; Humphreys, Peter; Greer, John J.; Percy, Alan; Glaze, Daniel G.; Zoghbi, Huda Y.; Neul, Jeffrey L. (22 December 2009). "Loss of MeCP2 in aminergic neurons causes cell-autonomous defects in neurotransmitter synthesis and specific behavioral abnormalities". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 106 (51): 21966–21971. Bibcode:2009PNAS..10621966S. doi:10.1073/pnas.0912257106. PMC 2799790. PMID 20007372.
  29. ^ Chen, Lin; Chen, Kaifu; Lavery, Laura A.; Baker, Steven A.; Shaw, Chad A.; Li, Wei; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (28 April 2015). "MeCP2 binds to non-CG methylated DNA as neurons mature, influencing transcription and the timing of onset for Rett syndrome". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 112 (17): 5509–5514. Bibcode:2015PNAS..112.5509C. doi:10.1073/pnas.1505909112. PMC 4418849. PMID 25870282.
  30. ^ Ure, Kerstin; Lu, Hui; Wang, Wei; Ito-Ishida, Aya; Wu, Zhenyu; He, Ling-jie; Sztainberg, Yehezkel; Chen, Wu; Tang, Jianrong; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (21 June 2016). "Restoration of Mecp2 expression in GABAergic neurons is sufficient to rescue multiple disease features in a mouse model of Rett syndrome". eLife. 5: e14198. doi:10.7554/eLife.14198. PMC 4946897. PMID 27328321.
  31. ^ Rodríguez, Ana María (5 September 2019). "Ataxin-1: One gene, two different neurodegenerative diseases". Baylor College of Medicine, From the Labs.
  32. ^ Suh, Jaehong (22 August 2019). "Loss of Ataxin-1 Potentiates Alzheimer's Pathogenesis by Elevating Cerebral BACE1 Transcription". Cell. 178 (5): 1159–1175.e17. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2019.07.043. PMC 6726125. PMID 31442405 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
  33. ^ "The Brain Prize Winners". Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  34. ^ "2019 ASHG Award Recipients | ASHG". www.ashg.org. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  35. ^ "Dr. Huda Y. Zoghbi". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 6 December 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  36. ^ "Molecular Medicine awards Ross Prize to Baylor College of Medicine's Huda Zoghbi" (Press release). Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. 8 March 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  37. ^ "Dr. Huda Zoghbi receives Lebanon's highest honor". Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute. 23 January 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  38. ^ "Breakthrough Prize Life Sciences Laureates 2017". Break Prize Foundation. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  39. ^ "Huda Y Zoghbi". Gairdner Foundation. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  40. ^ "Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  41. ^ Jump up to: a b "Huda Yahya Zoghbi". Virtually Integrated Institutions for Clinical and Translational Research. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  42. ^ "Yale awards 12 honorary degrees at 2014 graduation". Yale University. 19 May 2014. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  43. ^ Jennings, Charles (4 March 2014). "McGovern Institute to honor neurogenetics researcher Huda Zoghbi". McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  44. ^ "Texas Children's Hospital Neuroscientist Dr. Huda Zoghbi Receives 2011 Legacy Award from The Brookwood Community". Texas Children's Hospital. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  45. ^ "Cathedra Laboris". University of Monterrey. Archived from the original on 13 September 2017. Retrieved 12 September 2017.
  46. ^ "Baylor College scientist wins Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize". University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 20 May 2008. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  47. ^ "Arab Students' Organization hosts awards". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 12 April 2007. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  48. ^ "William A. Zoghbi, MD, FASE, FAHA, MACC". Houston Methodist Hospital. Retrieved 14 December 2018.

External links[]

Retrieved from ""