The Science Life Genetics

Prion disease gets personal

Woman’s diagnosis turns her and her husband into scientists

Eric Minikel and Sonia Vallabh

NEW SCIENTISTS  Married couple Eric Minikel (left) and Sonia Vallabh (right) switched careers to investigate a deadly brain disease that Vallabh inherited from her mother.

Maria Nemchuk, Broad Inst. Communications

By Tina Hesman Saey

- More than 2 years ago

Sonia Vallabh knows what will probably kill her.

In 2011, the Boston-area law school graduate learned she carries the same genetic mutation that caused her mother’s death from a rare brain-wasting prion disease.