Abstract: Medicine improved since the beginning of Anne’s career. Therapies improved for neurological illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis and others. Improvements can be made in the time doctors have to spend on paperwork and extensive documentation required by insurance companies that leave less time for actual patient interactions. There are still challenges for women, such as their promotion to the highest academic and leadership levels. Anne describes the advances since her early studies in Sol’s lab. By 2015, it was becoming impossible for Anne to deny Nancy’s signs of HD. Anne wanted so much to help her. Nancy’s sister, Alice, became a close friend and they both hoped Nancy would join a clinical trial. Several promising therapies were being tested and Nancy agreed to join one. Before she was able to actually join the trial, however, it was suddenly stopped as it was making people worse. Over weekly Zoom calls with Anne and Alice, Nancy was excited that her Hereditary Disease Foundation (HDF) was going to fund three large and extremely innovative research grants that promise the application of novel approaches to find HD therapies.

In 2012, at age 64, Anne desired to retire. She didn’t want to serve past her prime. If she retired, her lab space could go instead to a young investigator just starting a career. Anne was pleased with the search committee’s replacement – Merit Cudkowicz – a woman on Anne’s faculty who had established and directed their Program in Clinical Investigation. Her area of expertise was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). She had also come down to Venezuela one year to work on the project. She went from ‘bench to bedside’ by assessing potential new therapies discovered at the laboratory bench in humans using the best clinical trial designs. To celebrate completing 21 years of service, Anne organized a trip to the Galapagos. She found an outfit with a boat and invited 20 of her best friends to go on the trip, including Nancy, her sister Alice, David Housman and his wife, Gill Bates and her husband, Alice Flaherty and her family, Anne’s daughter Ellen and her boyfriend and others. Anne became chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Nancy’s HDF, which entailed assigning grant reviewers, reviewing grants and running meetings. She was appointed chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Collaborative Center for XDP.