Charles Sabine, is a television journalist who worked for NBC News for 26 years, before becoming a spokesman for patients and families suffering from degenerative brain disease.
Early life and career
Sabine was educated at Brentwood School, England, then obtained a first class honours degree in Media Studies from Westminster University, where he was tutored by BBC Radio ProducerCharles Parker. He joined NBC in 1982 in London, and became a producer on the “Today” show in New York in 1987. According to NBC, "he participated in most of the major international news stories of the last two decades – Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Syria, Haiti, South Africa, Rwanda, Zaire, Iran, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Northern Ireland." Sabine, as producer of the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw team coverage of the Romanian Revolution, received an Emmy Award for his program segments which aired in December 1989, in the Outstanding General Coverage of a Single–Breaking News Story category of the News & Documentary Emmy Awards.
Advocacy
In 2008, Sabine became an advocate for freedom of scientific research, and the victims of degenerative brain illnesses: in particular, Huntington's disease, from which his family suffers. Sabine contributed to the drafting of the late Senator Edward Kennedy's last act of legislation—the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, designed to protect the rights of individuals with genetic predispositions in the American workplace and in insurance. Sabine was an active lobbyist in the successful implementation of the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008. The 50th Anniversary of Canada's Gairdner Foundation in 2009, attended by 22 Nobel Laureates, was marked by a debate between Sabine and Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner about the future of personalised genomics. In 2009 he was the star guest at the Italian National Telethon, for which a film about him was produced by RAI cinema. Sabine is a spokesperson for Huntington's disease lay associations around the world, among them:
Sabine is a member of the Global Advisory Council of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. On 30 June 2010, more than a year of campaigning and fundraising in partnership with Sir Michael Rawlins culminated in the launch of an All-Party Parliamentary Group for Huntington’s disease in the UK Parliament. Chaired by Lord Walton of Detchant and supported by more than 40 MPs and Lords, the purpose of the Group is to raise the profile of Huntington’s disease and establish a better methodology for estimating its prevalence, and thus lead to allocation of more appropriate resources for care and research. Sabine is Consulting Publisher to the Huntington's disease research news web platform HDBuzz, founded by Dr Jeff Carroll and Dr Ed Wild. Featured in the 2013 documentary , Sabine discusses his advocacy work to raise awareness of Huntington's Disease.
