Anita Harding

Anita Harding made several significant contributions especially in the field of inherited neurologic disorders. Her major achievements are the classification of the peripheral neuropathies and hereditary ataxias, the first identification of a mitochondrial DNA mutation in human disease and the identification of trinucleotide repeats in degenerative neurologic diseases (e.g. Huntington's disease). She has also worked extensively on the population genetics of disorders with ethnic distribution.

She died of cancer at the age of 42 just before she was to take up the Chair in Clinical Neurology at the Institute of Neurology in Queen Square, London. On learning of her terminal condition she is said to have responded impishly, 'At least I won't have to buy Windows 95'.

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