EP 246: Turning a fatal diagnosis into a cure strategy: Accelerating C9orf72 ALS research with Yentli Soto Albrecht of CureC9

This week on The Genetics Podcast, Patrick is joined by Yentli Soto Albrecht, physician-scientist in training and founder of CureC9. They discuss how losing her father to C9orf72 ALS, and later learning her own genetic risk, reshaped the direction of her career. The conversation explores the biology linking the C9 repeat expansion to ALS and FTD, and how CureC9 is removing barriers across biomarkers, therapeutics, and patient samples to accelerate progress toward a cure.

Show Notes

0:00 Intro to The Genetics Podcast

00:58 Welcome to Yentli

02:34 How Yentli's father's C9 ALS diagnosis and her own genetic risk led her to pivot her research career toward curing it

06:41 The biology of the C9orf72 repeat expansion and how TDP-43 dysregulation links it to ALS and FTD

11:40 Therapeutic strategies targeting TDP-43 pathology in ALS and FTD

15:35 The state of biomarkers for ALS and FTD, and why C9-FTD trials lag behind ALS

22:08 How Yentli is lowering barriers for biomarker, cell line, and drug development through CureC9

30:40 Call for collaborators and where to follow Yentli 

32:59 Closing remarks

Find out more: CureC9