Fueling Discovery: 9 Research Projects Funded by Parkinson’s Foundation Grants
Taking on a disease as complex as Parkinson’s disease (PD) requires the best scientific minds in the world and the ability to fund innovative ideas. The next Parkinson’s research breakthrough can happen in any lab, at any time. Parkinson’s Foundation research grants exist to decipher this disease and find new ways to stop it from progressing.
“Many of our grant-funded researchers pursue high-risk projects unlikely to receive federal funding. These projects push the envelope of research and are the kinds of projects the Parkinson’s community eagerly awaits — those that explore the potential for new treatments based on the science behind Parkinson’s,” said James Beck, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at the Parkinson's Foundation.
Explore nine Parkinson’s Foundation-funded studies below divided into three critical research avenues:
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New movement symptom treatments.
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How gut bacteria and PD are related.
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How aging impacts PD development and progression.
Go in depth into each study below:
Investigating how gut bacteria play a role in PD
1. Searching for gut bacteria that may lead to PD.
Chris Smillie, PhD, recipient of a Parkinson’s Foundation Impact Award, is using cutting-edge genetic techniques to find bacterial cells associated with PD, identify how their activity and function may contribute to the disease and how we might be able to target gut bacteria to slow, stop or prevent disease progression.
2. How gut bacteria influence levodopa effectiveness.
Christine Olson, PhD, recipient of a Parkinson’s Foundation Launch Award and a previous Postdoctoral Fellow, is researching a certain type of bacteria in the gut she suspects may impact the effectiveness of levodopa. She’s also investigating whether there are ways to use targeted antibiotics to improve levodopa use.
3. Exploring gut health biomarkers as early indicators for PD.
Trisha Pasricha, MD, recipient of a Parkinson’s Foundation Impact Award, aims to compare the gut biology of people with and without Parkinson’s using new technology to discover the biomarkers of PD-linked bloating and nausea to improve future diagnoses.
Searching for treatments for movement symptoms
4. Using ultrasound stimulation to address freezing of gait.
Amitabh Bhattacharya, PhD, recipient of the Parkinson’s Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, is investigating if non-invasive ultrasound stimulation could reduce freezing of gait symptoms without the need for invasive surgery.
5. Treating levodopa-induced movement symptoms.
Jeroen Habets, MD, PhD, recipient of the Parkinson’s Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, is working to identify brain wave “biomarkers” of levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID), highlighting regions of the brain that go awry during LID and could be targeted by magnetic stimulation therapy to reduce or eliminate LID completely.
6. Improving deep brain stimulation to treat movement symptoms.
Coralie de Hemptinne, PhD, recipient of a Parkinson’s Foundation Stanley Fahn Junior Faculty Award is searching for a way to improve deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy for PD by developing a process that would automatically program DBS devices.
Studying how aging impacts PD development and progression
7. Boosting brain immune cells as a new preventative PD therapy.
Rebecca Wallings, PhD, recipient of a Parkinson’s Foundation Launch Award, is investigating how aging impairs a certain type of immune cell outside the brain — and how this impairment impacts cells within the brain that contribute to the development of PD.
8. Exploring DNA “safety caps” as a source of neuron loss in PD.
Edward Burton, MD, PhD, recipient of a Parkinson’s Foundation Impact Award, is researching how the damage of telomeres, the protective “caps” on chromosomes linked to aging, may contribute to neuron loss in Parkinson’s.
9. Untangling the connections between inflammation, aging and PD.
Sarah Talley, PhD, recipient of the Parkinson’s Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, is studying how “inflammaging,” age-related inflammation, may worsen the spread of alpha-synuclein clumps in brain, with the hope of better understanding how anti-inflammatory therapies could be used to treat people with PD.
Meet more Parkinson’s researchers! Explore our My PD Stories featuring PD researchers.
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