Promising Outcomes of Original Grant:
In February 2013, Luk et al. published in Science that administration of synthetic alpha-synuclein into pre-formed fibrils in pre-clinical models was sufficient to induce the principal behavioral and pathological features of sporadic Parkinson's disease (PD), providing a valuable tool for pre-clinical research.
Objectives for Supplemental Investigation:
The scientific community is still in search of a robust and reliable pre-clinical model for PD. It is imperative that such a model is both reproducible and transferable from lab to lab. For these reasons, we took on the endeavor to work MJFF and the guidance of Dr. Kelvin C. Luk to repeat the Science study. By replicating the findings in our lab, we will be able to validate the model, which can then serve as a tool to assess and identify treatment in pre-clinical studies. Today, the replication arrives to its terms and scientific data will be presented and discussed.
Importance of This Research for the Development of a New PD Therapy:
In the hope of finding a cure for PD, it is of high relevance to generate/identify tools, such as pre-clinical models, to mimic reliable and robust disease symptoms, which are translatable and predictive of human conditions. These models can be used to evaluate treatment regimens and hopefully identify a potential drug candidate.