Huda Zoghbi (right)
and her team, including
HHMI postdoc Kei Watase,
are studying the genetics
of brain disorders.

Gowned and gloved, Huda Zoghbi holds a squirming mouse in her hand and peers through a plastic hood. "Did you see that?" Zoghbi asks as the mouse flails. "He just had a seizure."    The wriggling laboratory mouse could have major implications for human health. "Through studies of this animal model," Zoghbi says, "we hope to gain insight into autism and into one of the most common causes of mental retardation in females, namely Rett syndrome."
continued...

Photo: Pam Francis

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
July 2001, pages 16-19.
©2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute