Edward Wild (neuroscientist)
Edward John Wild (Ed Wild) is a British neurologist and neuroscientist who studies Huntington's disease (HD) and works to explain science to the public. He co-founded HDBuzz, an online site that shares accessible HD research news, in 2010. He is a Professor of Neurology at the UCL Institute of Neurology, associate director of the UCL Huntington's Disease Centre, and a consultant neurologist at London’s National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.
Education and early work: Wild studied medicine at Christ's College, Cambridge, and earned a PhD at UCL under Professor Sarah Tabrizi, focusing on biomarkers for HD in brain scans and blood. His early research also touched on neurological phenomena like déjà vu.
Key research: In 2015 Wild helped develop a method to detect mutant huntingtin protein in cerebrospinal fluid, a finding highlighted by Nature Reviews Neurology and rewarded with the Huntington Study Group’s Insight of the Year. He and Tabrizi also identified an immune system pathway involved in HD, guiding trials of immune-targeted therapies. Since 2017 his work has emphasized biomarkers such as neurofilament light (NFL) and mutant huntingtin to track HD onset and progression. NFL helps predict disease, while mutant huntingtin can show early drug effects in trials.
Clinical trials: Wild has been a senior investigator in trials to lower mutant huntingtin, including tominersen, and gave the first dose in 2015. He has also contributed to AMT130, a gene therapy delivered by brain injection, and in 2025 reported topline results suggesting it slowed HD progression by about 75%.
Roles and outreach: He serves on the Medical Advisory Panel for the UK Huntington's Disease Association, on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Huntington's Disease, and on neurogenetics and translational neurology panels. He is part of the European Huntington's Disease Network's Executive Committee and co-leads its Biomarkers Working Group, and helped establish the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Huntington's Disease.
Publications and media: With Jeff Carroll, Wild co-founded HDBuzz to provide balanced HD news. By 2022 he had about 150 peer-reviewed papers and several book chapters. He has appeared in documentaries and on radio and TV to discuss Huntington's disease and its treatments, promoting careful interpretation of research findings.
Personal life: Wild lives in East London with his partner and their pets.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:20 (CET).