How a Midwife became a neuroscientist to seek a cure for her son: Terry Jo Bichell felt the need to work on a scientific solution to her son’s rare disorder, even though it meant being a PhD student in her fifties.
Son’s rare disease inspires Midwife to pursue neuroscience: When her youngest child was diagnosed with Angelman syndrome, Terry Jo Bichell, a Nurse-Midwife, set out to find a cure, got involved with clinical studies and started teaching pre-literacy skills to children with the condition. At 49, Bichell enrolled in a neuroscience PhD program. She started working in a lab studying Huntington’s disease, convinced an expert in circadian rhythms to help with her research, set up “mini-labs” of undergraduate students, and published research demonstrating and association between circadian rhythms and Angelman syndrome.