Word: wexler
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...scientist, Nancy Wexler always thought she would want to know. Since watching her mother die in 1978 of Huntington's disease, the 41-year-old Columbia University neuropsychologist has wondered if she too will develop the untreatable and fatal brain disorder. She was all too aware that a child with a Huntington's parent has a 50% chance of contracting the inherited disease, usually between the ages of 35 and 45. Now the answer is hers for the asking, thanks to a complex chromosomal test Wexler herself helped devise...
Last month that test was given for the first time to two young adults at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Both tested positive, and must now live with the grim certainty of developing the disease, which causes progressive dementia and loss of body control. And suddenly Nancy Wexler is no longer sure she wants to know her fate. "Before the test, you can always say, 'Well, it can't happen to me,' " says Wexler, who is president of the Hereditary Disease Foundation. "After the test, if it's positive, you can't say that anymore...
Rebecca E. Wexler ’05 is a joint-concentrator in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (WGS) and History and Science. Her unique experience in both science and WGS courses led to her Harvard-focused thesis...
Last year, Wexler noticed a serious difference in the treatment of gender in her women’s studies and anthropology classes. “They’re still teaching deterministic theories in biology and genetics that are critiqued in the women’s studies department,” Wexler said. Her thesis concluded that Harvard’s science departments treat certain differences in the performance of the sexes as innate (sound familiar?), while WGS classes focus on “feminist social biology,” Wexler said...
...said her thesis garnered additional attention after Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers made comments on innate differences between the genders. Wexler said, “Suddenly people knew what I was writing about, whereas before they gave me really weird looks...