James Gusella, now a professor in the Molecular Neurogenetics Unit, Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, is known for his work in developing strategies to localize and characterize genes that cause neurological disorders.

Gusella was educated at the University of Ottawa (BSc, Honors Biology), University of Toronto (MSc, Medical Biology) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD). He joined the faulty at Harvard and the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1980.

That same year, Gusella agreed to participate in a project to locate the gene whose defect was responsible for Huntington's disease. The disease is an inherited, currently incurable degenerative neuropsychiatric disorder, which affects both the body and the mind. Symptoms most commonly begin between the ages of 35 and 50, although onset may occur in childhood as well as in old age. The symptoms include dance-like involuntary movement, clumsiness, slurred speech, depression, irritability and apathy. Deficiencies in reasoning speed, attention and...