Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel are on a quest to find a cure for fatal familial insomnia, reports Quartz.
Sonia is 32 and her inherited genetic condition, called fatal familial insomnia, usually strikes people in their 50s. It is caused by the abnormal shape of a protein that causes other healthy proteins to become abnormal too. These mutant proteins, called prions, collect in the brain and cause severe insomnia leading to death.
