Abstract: By 2001, two years after approval, the new MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MIND) building was designed, built and opened. About 30 independent faculty laboratory heads occupied the laboratory floors. Each lab head had 5–15 people in their lab and in total about 300 people worked on the two main floors. Anne’s lab and office moved to MIND. Early on, she was still very depressed about Jack’s death and needed help to continue her research. Without Jack, Anne didn’t have enthusiasm or ambition. Zane Hollingsworth and Anne’s previous trainees, Jang-Ho Cha and David Standaert, helped Anne with her students, postdocs, technicians and grants. Anne was elected president of the American Neurological Association and then president of the Society for Neuroscience. Six years after Jack died, Anne received an email from her old eighth-grade and sometimes high school boyfriend, Stetson Ames. He was coming to Boston in May and asked Anne if she would like to meet. She and Stets eventually married. Anne inherited $2 million when her mother died, a million of which she donated to Mass General. Nancy Wexler began showing signs of Huntington’s disease. It was undeniable, but neither Anne nor Nancy could face the devastating possibility.

Abstract: After Anne’s trip to Venezuela, she returned to lab work in Michigan. She wanted to get to know Nancy better and work side by side with her in her efforts. Jack and Anne continued working on the grant they had obtained when Ellen was born. They aimed to identify the neurotransmitters of the motor pathways that influence the disorderly movements of Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease. They figured out the most efficient way to conduct their experiments using x-ray film that was sensitive to the weaker energy, tritium. Next, they measured the number of receptors using a type of radioactive yardstick (or standard) by mixing known amounts of radioactivity with brain tissue and applying these standards to the same piece of film as the slides of tissue sections. They got all the chemical information and data from tiny regions of the brain that were otherwise impossible to study. They used the new technique to measure GABA receptors. One of Anne’s patients with Huntington’s and her sister killed themselves. Anne felt responsible and fell into a deep depression.

Abstract: At Ann Arbor, Anne applied for grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which she received. Sid Gilman suggested Anne speak with her health science administrator (HSA) Nancy Wexler for advice. Wexler told Anne her grant proposal was accepted. With the grants, Anne and Jack could spend 80 percent of their time in the laboratory and 20 percent of their time seeing patients (one day a week). The experiments Anne proposed turned out to be complete failures. She decided that it was not worth pursuing further. Instead, Anne and Jack used their time to study the main pathways of the motor system. Jack did the surgery, made and evaluated the lesions and Anne conducted the biochemical experiments. They proposed the idea of a Movement Disorders Clinic to Sid. They hoped to focus on Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and related disorders. Movement disorders fascinated both Anne and Jack because it was a subspecialty relying on direct patient observation. With the stability provided by the grants, Anne and Jack decided to have another child, Ellen. Anne met Nancy Wexler at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta after Ellen was born.

Abstract: Anne became more familiar with Nancy Wexler. Nancy was at risk for Huntington’s because her mother had had it. Wexler was a founding member of the Michigan Chapter of the Committee to Combat Huntington’s Disease. Anne was invited to attend a workshop at the Hereditary Disease Foundation (HDF). The HDF was founded by Nancy’s father, Milton Wexler, a psychoanalyst. In 1981, Nancy invited Anne to Maracaibo, Venezuela, to pursue studies of the families that she had presented two years before at Michigan. Anne would examine the family in which two parents with HD had together birthed 14 children, all of whom were living. Anne had never been out of the country without Jack; she got his approval, but she could tell he was jealous. At the Maracaibo airport, she met the team, such as Steve Uzzell (a photographer), who she’d be working alongside. She knew Ira Shoulson, a neurologist and HD expert; they overlapped for a day. Nancy’s goal was to put together a detailed family tree of all the HD families, take blood and skin samples from each family member and examine each person neurologically and cognitively. The team went to Lagunetas, a remote stilt village to examine the family.