Recently, the Boston University Medical Center (BUMC) was chosen as one of 18 sites to participate in a landmark observational clinical study of Parkinson’s disease, sponsored by The Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Parkinson’s is a disease that impairs mobility through the degeneration of the central nervous system. For someone with Parkinson’s (the disease affects men two times more often than women), the brain will stop producing dopamine, which controls the body’s movements. By the time individuals start to show signs of Parkinson’s, like stiffness, slowness, and tremors, most only have 25% of their original capacity to create dopamine left.
Treatments now aim to slow Parkinson’s progression by providing the brain with more dopamine, keeping the dopamine that is already there present and mimicking the actions of it.
This new study’s purpose is to research whether biomarkers, characteristics tied to the presence of a disease, exist in individuals who develop Parkinson’s. The discovery of such biomarkers could mean drastic changes in the development of treatments for the disease and the process of treatment itself.
"We diagnose Parkinson’s based on the story that people tell us and the exam findings that neurologists see in the office," explained Dr. Samuel Frank, the site investigator at BUMC a movement disorder specialist with the department of neurology. "That is the same way we’ve tracked and diagnosed Parkinson’s since James Parkinson described his work...in 1870."
If biomarkers exist for the Parkinson’s, Frank said that pharmaceutical companies will be able to more easily create treatments for the disease. Instead of recording progress based on how fast hundreds of individuals can tap their fingers after a treatment, those companies could record progress based on biomarker indicators instead - a speedier process with less variability.
"This study is a stepping stone and a tool for pharmaceutical companies and other people to move forward and develop treatments faster and for a lot less money," he said.
In addition, doctors could use the existence of a biomarker to track and adjust treatments based on the responses of a patient.
While BUMC will enroll 30 people in the study, 20 with Parkinson’s and 10 controls without it, the entire study will include 400 with and 200 without the disease. They’ll spend five years tracking the progress of each participant.
Dr. Frank has had a long interest in Parkinson’s disease. Before medical school, he had thought he would find a place in sleep medicine, having done sleep medicine research previously at the University of Chicago. But the summer between his first two years in medical school, his focus shifted to Parkinson’s while completing a study on the kinds of sleep problems Parkinson’s patients have.
"I became much more interested in the Parkinson’s side of thing," Frank remembered. "It was the relationship patient’s had with their doctor. I consider myself a people person and it was very clear these patients had developed a long-term relationship with their neurologist...I like the human aspect of it."
Frank graduated from medical school in 1998 and completed an internship in medicine and residency in neurology at the University of Rochester. He then returned to the Boston University Medical Center in 2004, where he has been working on Parkinson’s since.
In a press release from BUMC announcing the study, Frank reiterated his excitement at being chosen as a site.
"Boston University Medical Center has been at the forefront of Parkinson’s disease research for years in Boston, Massachusetts," he is quoted as saying. "It is deeply meaningful to have been selected as a...site and to have our commitment to speeding Parkinson’s solutions recognized."