Nature, the international weekly journal of science, recently featured UNC Eye Researcher Steven Gray, PhD in an article about scientists who specialize in uncommon diseases.
An excerpt from the article:
Steven Gray used to spend long hours in the lab for the simple love of science. As a postdoctoral researcher, he was tinkering with a virus in search of ways to shuttle genes into nerve cells for gene therapy. Then, in 2008, his adviser sent him to a meeting held by a non-profit organization called Hannah’s Hope Fund, and Gray found a new inspiration.
Hannah’s Hope Fund is a charity based in Rexford, New York, that supports research on giant axonal neuropathy (GAN), a fatal nerve disorder. At the meeting, Gray met Hannah Sames, a clumsy four-year-old with tight curls and a sweet smile whose disease had inspired her parents to start the charity. He launched a GAN project after the meeting. “I looked at her and saw my own daughter,” says Gray, whose child was then also four. “Now I’m focused on finding a treatment, almost as I would for my own child.”