This week, the MJFF research staff reflected on some of the projects they worked on in 2011 that they believe could have the greatest impact on the Parkinson’s disease (PD) patient community.  Read on to find out directly from Foundation team members about some of the work being done to speed progress toward a cure.

“I’m enthusiastic about the progress made in 2011 on PPMI.  The study has now enrolled over 280 individuals to participate in the study, and data have been already downloaded more than 4,000 times by scientists in the research community at large to conduct independent studies toward verifying biomarkers for PD.   MJFF also helped make a specific lab test available to researchers that could help to measure the protein alpha-synuclein as a potential biomarker for the disease – a huge step forward.  Thanks to such advancements, I am hopeful that PPMI will in the future have a major impact on drug development for PD, tangibly benefiting those living with the disease.” – Mark Frasier, PhD, director of research programs

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MJFF continues to work to address research focused on the unmet needs of people living Parkinson’s disease (PD) today.  The Foundation’s partnership with Jim Greene, MD, PhD, of Emory University addresses one such need – the gastrointestinal symptoms that affect many with PD. To date, these symptoms of PD are poorly understood, and there is a dearth of treatment options to address them, in part because researchers lack a model that could be used to test new therapies.  MJFF has been funding Dr. Greene to develop such a model since 2006.

In September, Dr. Greene published a paper in the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease explaining the current state of modeling gastrointestinal problems in PD.

In addition, Dr. Greene is heading a collaboration between neurologists and GI specialists to examine the ‘enteric nervous system’ (ENS) — a nervous system located in the stomach and intestines that contains, in both humans and pre-clinical models, nearly as many nerve cells as the brain. With follow-on funding from MJFF, the researchers are now building on Dr. Greene’s earlier results and examining the ENS in parkinsonian pre-clinical models to determine which nerve cells are damaged and thus responsible for causing the GI symptoms — information that will dramatically speed efforts to develop therapeutic targets for new GI treatments.