Francesca Cicchetti obtained her PhD in neurobiology from Université Laval in Québec in 1998. In 2002, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School in the field of cell replacement therapy for neurodegenerative disorders. She is now professor at the department of psychiatry and neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine of Université Laval. Dr. Cicchetti has published over 100 manuscripts in high-impact journals and three of her recent publications have been awarded most influential papers in the field of Huntington’s disease by the Huntington Study Group. She is an active member of several scientific committees and editorial boards. Her research program aims to understand the prion-like properties of abnormal proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases and to develop therapeutic strategies that would target this aspect of the pathophysiology. More recent work focuses on elucidating the impact of Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease-related proteins and toxins on the functionality of the blood-brain barrier.