Funded Studies

Objective/Rationale:
Our goal is to discover new genes that lead to Parkinson’s disease.  Most of the known causes of Parkinson’s disease are rare and account for a minority of patients. However, it...

Objective/Rationale:

• In animal models of PD, brain injections of certain neurotrophic factors prevent degeneration of midbrain dopaminergic neurons.
• Clinical testing of brain injected gene vectors...

Objective/Rationale:    
In normal cells, Parkin protein senses damage of critical cellular organelles known as mitochondria and promotes recycling of their contents. Mitochondria are the energy...

Objective/Rationale:    
Viruses (including influenza) have also been proposed to be an etiological agent for PD based on the appearance of otherwise non-explained clusters of parkinsonism. Recently...

Objective/Rationale:
Recently, a novel region of the genome containing genetic information predisposing to the development of Parkinson’s disease has been discovered through a collaborative study of...

Objective/Rationale:
A-synuclein, the main component of Lewy bodies, is thought to be present mostly on nerve terminals. Although the function of a-synuclein is unclear, its presence in the nucleus of...