Research Associate
Dr. Chris Kay is a geneticist and molecular biologist working to understand the molecular pathogenesis of repeat expansion disorders, with focus on Huntington disease (HD).
He earned his doctorate in Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia under the guidance of Dr. Michael Hayden, leading to discovery of genetic variants for therapeutic silencing of the Huntington disease mutation. Dr. Kay has made key contributions to the genetics of Huntington disease, including detailed haplotype analysis of the Huntington disease mutation, somatic and germline instability measurements of Huntington disease alleles, and estimating the penetrance of the Huntington disease mutation in the general population. He worked for three years in patenting of life sciences assets in academia and the biotechnology industry before returning to Huntington disease research. Dr. Kay has authored or co-authored over 30 scientific publications (h-index 20).
In his current work, Dr. Kay studies genetic variants that alter the presentation of HD, and how these variants accelerate HD pathology in the brain. He is the 2023 HDSA Berman-Topper Career Development Fellow, awarded to one early-career HD researcher worldwide per year, and the 2025 recipient of a Huntington Disease Career Advancement Grant from the Hereditary Disease Foundation.
Dr. Kay, I am Carol Carlson, family researcher and resident of Lansing, Michigan. In doing family history for a late brother in law’s family, I am strongly suspicious of a family history of HD going back to an ancestor born in England in 1808 (this same little village sent someone to Australia who carried HD).No actual diagnoses, but a rather incredible collection of suicides and mental hospital confinements in one generation, plus numerous suspicious deaths in three, four and five generations down. Three other distinct families that I have come across due to public stories (forensic) again seem strongly suggestive (having done extensive research on them through public records), yet no diagnosis anywhere. In watching your “ABC’s of CAGs” seminar and the number of people unaware of HD who actually have the allele, combined with 4 families that I know of, in my little world, completely unaware, it would seem that many more families carry HD than is currently suspected. Knowing about the full range of carriers would certainly help research with cure/treatment possibilities. Question: would it be possible to start looking by running automatic HD tests on all completed suicides?