Helen Hwang is a movement disorder neurologist and instructor in the department of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine. While completing neurology and movement disorder training there, she became interested in potential biomarkers and therapeutics for Parkinson’s disease (PD). Clinically, Dr. Hwang is interested in PD and the progression of non-motor symptoms, in particular cognitive and psychiatric symptoms. Her undergraduate studies focused on psychology and bioengineering, and she studied the biology of structures that cap the ends of chromosomes using single molecule fluorescence while pursuing her MD/PhD. She has developed a fluorescent test for alpha-synuclein fibril growth to screen small molecules as therapeutics for PD. She is now expanding this work to screen environmental toxins as potential risk factors.