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H D I N S I G H T S HD Insights, Vol. 10 13 Copyright © Huntington Study Group 2015. All rights reserved. H D I N S I G H T S Cicchetti, cont... HD INSIGHTS: I assume given its impact that this paper was readily accepted by journals? CICCHETTI: I can now laugh about it, but publishing this paper was quite a battle. It took close to two-and-a-half years. We first made this observation more than 3 years ago. I went to the microscope and saw the inclusions in the transplant. I remember calling a colleague in Europe and telling him about the observation, and he immediately replied that I needed to publish this paper as soon as possible. But we really, really struggled to get it published. The reviewers were intrigued and interested by the finding, or at least the majority of them, but did not quite believe it, and I think that they were not ready to accept the idea of non – cell-autonomous propagation of pathological proteins in genetic disorders. I have to admit that the first versions of the paper were bold and somewhat speculative, but now the published end product is something of a lobotomized version of what we really wanted to say. What I was most pleased about when HD Insights contacted me to present this at HSG 2014 was the fact that we finally had a platform to present this work, where people wanted to hear what we had to say. And now that I see the paper of Pecho- Vrieseling et al.—which came out just a couple of months after ours—providing in vitro and in vivo evidence of non – cell autonomous mHTT spread, it is clear that we are now open to discussing these ideas and thinking outside the box. This has been so rewarding and it has given me so much energy. I was a workaholic before, but now I am unstoppable. I really want to solve this thing. One of the things I have most enjoyed in the last couple of years is that the landscape of research has completely changed. Now we conduct multidisciplinary and multicentric research. Through this project we have teamed up with colleagues who are pure immunologists working on arthritis, for example. And together we are attacking this problem from a completely different perspective. It is a very exciting time. HD INSIGHTS: What is the most exciting aspect for you? CICCHETTI: It's being able to rally colleagues from all disciplines to study this. It's the collaboration with researchers who are completely outside this field and investigating or trying to apply concepts that they have discovered in their own research—in other words, thinking of the problem differently, in ways we had not thought of before. I am also a big fan of recycling medicine that is already out there. It takes so long and it is so expensive to do research and development; why not screen compounds that are already available and have a good safety profile, and see if they can have applications for other disorders? I have been blessed to work with wonderful students and collaborators on the Annals of Neurology paper, and to now have them on board, with new collaborators, to pursue this work. HD INSIGHTS: So when you are not identifying propagation of mHTT, how do you spend your time? CICCHETTI: I spend a lot of time in the lab. I'm a bit of a nerd and I must say that my staff are completely fed up with me, because even at Christmas parties, I talk about mHTT propagation! But I also love to travel, spend time with my family and practice tango and salsa. I'm going to see my parents in Florida over the holidays. HD INSIGHTS: Will you take your microscope? CICCHETTI: No, but I am definitely taking my computer, and working on our next paper reporting blood-brain barrier leakage in HD. HD INSIGHTS: Dr. Cicchetti, thank you very much for all your time and for your great insights into a new area of HD research that has clearly captured many people's attention. 1 Cicchetti F, Lacroix S, Cisbani G, et al. 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