Dr Rachel Harding

Rachel Harding is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and a Principal Investigator at the Structural Genomics Consortium. Rachel completed her undergraduate and DPhil in structural biology at the University of Oxford, before moving to the University of Toronto for her postdoctoral training. A key focus of Rachel’s research is the huntingtin protein, mutated in people with Huntington’s disease. Huntington’s is a devastating, incurable, genetic, neurodegenerative disease caused by a CAG-tract expansion in the Huntingtin gene. Rachel studies the structure-function of the huntingtin protein in both its wildtype and disease forms, with a view to better understand the mechanisms of disease, as well as trying to find new avenues of therapeutic intervention.